His marriage to Valentine Prax

1918-1920 A Wedding and a Solo Exhibition

His friend the painter Henri Ramey invited him to spend the summer near Montauban, in the mediaeval village of Bruniquel, with which Zadkine found himself in deep harmony – "Doors and windows carved out of stone spoke in a language that appeared to me solemn and beautiful.” In October 1918, he exhibited with Ramey at the Galerie Chappe-Lautier in Toulouse where he presented fifty-seven works on paper and "four directly carved sculptures": one in wood – The Harvest, and three in stone where the hand of the artist was in tune with the shape of the block – Woman with a mandolin. The painter Roger Bissière signed the catalogue.

In 1919 a young painter, Valentine Prax, became his neighbour in the Rue Rousselet.

Both shared exile and the bitter joys of the “bohemian” lifestyle. They married in August 1920 in Bruniquel. Two months earlier, Zadkine had organised his first solo exhibition in his studio: forty-nine sculptures carved out of wood, stone and marble. In the preface to the catalogue, Georges Duthuit highlighted the "bare simplicity" of this creative work.