Windy Heart or Inner Life

  • OSSIP ZADKINE
    Windy Heart or Inner Life

  • 60 x 36 x 10 cm
    Valentine Prax Bequest, 1981
  • [1958]
  • Terracotta
  • Inv. MZS 322
  • Room 6

A pen and Indian ink drawing on paper dated 1943, from the time of Zadkine's exile in New York, seems to be at the origin of this terracotta sculpture, produced in 1958; even though, as we know, Zadkine used drawing very little as a way of preparing his sculptures. For the composition of this figure, Zadkine used clay which was very highly "grogged” and therefore very granular.
The shapes were carved from the mass of clay, probably using hole-cutters. After firing, the work was covered with thick beige and red ochre paint, slightly glossy, with soft grey highlights, which gives its surface a very particular appearance. This composition in terracotta is closely related to the monumental bronze sculpture, Statue for a Mountain, which is exhibited in the garden of the museum, and for which it appears to be the preparatory draft, although there is no indication that when Zadkine produced this work he already had the intention of re-creating it on a monumental scale.