Graphic arts

The Barracks

The Barracks is an exceptional piece, both through the poignant strength of its subject and its unique graphic treatment.

Ossip Zadkine
1917
Watercolour, gouache wash and brown ink over graphite on blank paper
40,5 x 31,4 cm
Purchase by the City of Paris on the Zadkine-Prax bequest, 2005

     Inspired by the spirit of Cubism, it radiates with the tension of the hatchings which traverse it. For Zadkine, who went through the Great War as a volunteer in the Russian ambulance corps, the Barracks is a way of reacting to war as much as it is a representation.