Phoenix, 1944
Ossip Zadkine (Belarus, 1890-1967)
Sonsbeek ’52, City Hall, Arnhem
Photographer: unknown (Wikimedia commons)
Inleiding
In the Netherlands, Ossip Zadkine (1890–1967) is best known for the war monument De Verwoeste Stad (The Destroyed City) in Rotterdam. A smaller version of that monument was already shown during the first Sonsbeek exhibition in 1949. During Sonsbeek 1952, Zadkine presented Phoenix (1944), a work thematically connected to his earlier monument, linked to the traumas of World War II.
The sculpture depicts a phoenix, the mythological bird that rises repeatedly from its own ashes. Zadkine seems to capture the moment of flame and rebirth. For the municipality of Arnhem, the phoenix symbolizes the city’s reconstruction after the war. In 1955, Phoenix was acquired by the municipality, and since 1968 the sculpture has stood next to the light marble walls of the city hall.
Zadkine was born in Belarus and worked in Paris from 1910 until his death. His early work shows Cubist influences, a popular style in Paris from the 1910s. In the 1920s, he developed his own abstract sculptural language—less rigid and more dynamic—which is clearly visible in Phoenix.