In the 1920s, the human figure became Ossip Zadkine’s almost exclusive subject, as in Tête d’homme (Head of a Man), which was carved directly into alabaster. Using the softness of the stone, the sculptor seems to follow the form of the raw material that appears through the rounded shapes and curves of the face and neck. In contrast, the hair, made of irregular grooves etched into the stone, further accentuates this effect. The face exudes that particular strength which the sculptor managed to impart to each of his pieces, a quality that critics of his time recognised even in his early works.
The simplicity of the lines endow the figure that primitive soul so dear to Zadkine, who was influenced by Romanesque sculpture as well as by “Negro fetishes” and their “Egyptian, Greek, and Assyrian brothers”—a syncretism rooted at the time in the discovery and incorporation of non-Western modes of representation in order to return to forms considered more essential and original.
The duality of the face, one part of which is engraved and carved, and the other flat and drawn, also evokes the inversion of volumes characteristic of Cubism. In 1921, Zadkine joined the movement, which he had long rejected in favour of his own sensibility, and briefly adopted its codes. His involvement remained superficial, and the artist distanced himself from it from 1924 onwards. Tête d’homme embodies the artist’s return to himself, to the more natural shapes we know him for today, but also to the singular lyricism that permeates his creations and is expressed in the characteristic use of materials from which the artist draws all his expressive power.