Artists

Israel-Isaac Lipshitz, better known as Lippy Lipshitz, was born in Plungian, Lithuania in 1903 and moved with his family to Cape Town in 1908. During his school years, he received art lessons from the painter Ruth Prowse. Later, he studied at the Cape Town School of Art from 1922 to 1925, where he became acquainted with the sculptor Moses Kottler. From 1925 to 1926, he studied woodcarving under Herbert Meyerowitz at the Michaelis School of Fine Art at the University of Cape Town. Lipschitz moved to Paris in 1928, where he studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière under sculptor Andoine Bourdelle, a former student of Auguste Rodin. In Paris, he also met important sculptors Ossip Zadkine and Constantin Brâncuşi. He returned to Cape Town in 1932, after four years immersed in the various Modern Art movements of the time, including Cubism, Expressionism, Surrealism, and Dadaism. Lipshitz held his first solo exhibition at the Martin Melck House in 1932, but his modernist style was initially rejected by the traditional art establishment. In the late 1930s, he joined the New Group, along with other young artists, and participated in the inaugural 1938 exhibition. In 1950, Lipshitz participated in the 25th edition of the Venice Biennale. That same year, he took up a teaching post at Michaelis, becoming an assistant professor in 1964. Lipshitz was awarded the medal for sculpture by the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns in 1964. He moved to Israel in 1978, where he lived until his death in 1980.