Ibram Lassaw

Egyptian-born sculptor and artist

• Born: May 4, 1913
• Birthplace: Alexandria, Egypt
• Died: December 30, 2003
• Place of death: East Hampton, New York

A celebrated abstract sculptor, Lassaw took metal and design to a new level. He created giant sculptures for religious buildings and artworks for museum showcases in Europe and America.

Early Life

Ibram Lassaw (IH-brahm LAS-aw) was born in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1913. He traveled around Marseilles, Naples, Tunis, Malta, Constantinople, and the Crimea. His father killed a czarist police officer in self-defense and had to leave Russia. Lassaw finally moved permanently to the United States in 1921.

Lassaw began studying clay at age twelve, but he had modeled clay ever since he was four. He won first prize for sculpting a piece of clay in kindergarten class. Lassaw attended the Brooklyn Children’s Museum sculpture class five years after arriving in the United States, studying under Dorothea Denslow; he continued his education at the Clay Club and the Beaux Arts Institute of Design in the 1930’s. By the time he was a teenager, he had made thirty-three volumes of collected photographs and artworks to help him learn about and compare works from different time periods. In college, Lassaw studied medicine at City College of New York to please his parents, but he simultaneously studied at the Beaux Arts Institute of Design to pursue art for himself.

In 1933, Lassaw joined the Federal Arts Project, then the Civil Works Authority, and finally the Works Progress Administration. He still lived with his parents in Greenwich Village and decided it was time to move out, even though it would be costly. His parents feared that his career as a sculptor would leave him a poor, struggling artist. During this time his artwork was exhibited at the Whitney Annual and the Carnegie International, but the public did not buy his pieces.

He was drafted into the Army in 1942 and discharged in 1944 to study on the GI Bill. In order to support himself, he taught and found part-time jobs. Afterward, in the 1950’s, Zen Buddhism began to inspire Lassaw’s work, and he started to use organic and geometric poles in his artwork.

He then taught at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1965 to 1966, and at Southampton College in New York, from 1966 to the mid-1970’s. He lived with his wife, Ernestine, an artist who gave up her career when they were married, and they had a daughter.

Life’s Work

Lassaw’s first major contribution was the founding in 1936 of American Abstract Artists, an organization that promoted nonrepresentational art and the artists who worked in the field. He was president from 1946 to 1949. Lassaw’s artwork was shown in the United States and in Europe and was featured at the 1954 Venice Biennale. Lassaw had a one-man show in 1951 at the Kootz Gallery in New York: He continued to have shows there in 1952, 1954, and 1958.

Lassaw also worked with a few architects. He created sculptures such as Pillar of Fire for the façade of the Jewish temple of the Congregation Beth El in Massachusetts that was twenty-eight feet tall. Pillar of Fire and Pillar of Cloud used materials such as chromium, silicon, manganese, bronze, and copper; to bring out the bright colors, the metals were treated with acid, salts, and alkalis. Architect Philip Johnson also asked Lassaw to build a wall sculpture for Johnson’s famous Glass House in Connecticut.

Music helped inspire Lassaw’s work. He would listen to records nonstop during a project that would sometimes be reflected in his end product. Lassaw’s work continues to reappear in magazines, such as ARTnews, and other print vehicles. Lassaw died at home at the age of ninety in 2003.

Significance

Lassaw created some sculptures that represent religion. He made the Pillar of Fire for Percival Goodman, the architect of the Temple Beth El in Massachusetts. The pillar represents the fire that led the Israelites out of Egypt by night in the book of Exodus. In Ohio, for the House of Theology of the Franciscan Fathers, he designed and created a baldachin, a ceremonial canopy, nineteen feet high. Lassaw said all art is religious, and his work never interfered with his religious beliefs.

Bibliography

Campbell, Robertson. “Ibram Lassaw, Ninety, a Sculptor Devoted to Abstract Forms.” The New York Times, January 2, 2004, p. 7. This is an article about Lassaw after his death in 2003.

Goosen, E. C., R. Goldwater, and I. Sandler. Three American Sculptors: Ferber, Hare, Lassaw. New York: Grove Press, 1959. This book talks about three sculptors, Herbert Ferber, David Hare, and Lassaw. It has pictures of their artwork and concludes with a short biography of each artist.

Grossman, Emery. Art and Tradition. New York: T. Yoseloff, 1968. This book provides information about Jewish artists in the United States.

Harrison, Helen A. “Guided by ’Instinct and Intuition,’ Still Pursuing New Kinds of Art.” The New York Times, October 26, 2003, p. 1. This article discusses Lassaw’s artistic inspirations, as he gave a tour of his studio in the modest wood-shingled house where he had lived for fifty years.

Lassaw, Ibram. Ibram Lassaw: Detwiller Visiting Artist. Easton, Pa.: The Gallery, 1983. This book is about the techniques, inspirations, and styles of Lassaw’s artwork.