Walking Tour

Philadelphia Museum of Art

With its rich tradition of public art,

Philadelphia has long been a landmark

destination for admirers of sculptor Jacques

Lipchitz (1891–1973). Works from all periods

of the artist’s long and prolific career have an

important presence inside and outside the

Philadelphia Museum of Art, opposite City

Hall, and along the banks of the Schuylkill

River. Although he never lived in the city,

Lipchitz had a great affection for its people,

its art, and its architecture.

A Jewish immigrant from Lithuania,

Lipchitz moved to Paris in 1909 and

soon emerged as the leading Cubist sculptor

of his generation. The artist’s ties to

Philadelphia began in 1922, when renowned

American collector Dr. Albert C. Barnes

visited his Paris studio and commissioned

him to create seven relief carvings for the

Barnes Foundation building in Merion,

Pennsylvania. After arriving in the United

States as a war refugee in 1941, Lipchitz

visited Philadelphia frequently. He was

twice honored by the Pennsylvania Academy

of the Fine Arts, selected a critically

acclaimed retrospective exhibition at the

Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1964, and

received two major commissions for public

monuments —The Spirit of Enterprise in

1950 and Government of the People in 1967.

Lipchitz remains an artist of tremendous

popular appeal, whose powerful work rede-

fined the possibilities of modern sculpture.

Philadelphia Museum of ArtBenjamin Franklin Parkway at 26th Street

Philadelphia, PA 19130

www.philamuseum.org

This walking tour guide was produced in conjunction with

the exhibition Jacques Lipchitz and Philadelphia, on view at the

Philadelphia Museum of Art from June 27 through August 22, 2004.

The exhibition is made possible by grants from

The Pew Charitable Trusts and The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation;

it is also supported by a generous contribution from Mari and Peter Shaw.

The Spirit of Enterprise, 1953–54, cast 1960,

by Jacques Lipchitz (Commissioned by the Fairmount Park Art Association

and donated to the Fairmount Park Commission)

Prometheus Strangling the Vulture, begun 1944, cast 1952–53,

by Jacques Lipchitz (Purchased with the Lisa Norris Elkins Fund, 1952)

Government of the People, 1967–70, cast 1976,

by Jacques Lipchitz (Commissioned with private and public funds by the

Fairmount Park Art Association and donated to the City of Philadelphia)

Photographs by Graydon Wood

Cover: Portrait of Jacques Lipchitz, c. 1944, by Arnold Newman

(Gift of R. Sturgis Ingersoll, 1945)

©2004 Philadelphia Museum of Art0604-1351

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Suggested walking tour route

The Spirit of Enterprise

Prometheus Strangling the Vulture

Government

of the People

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Lipchitz

Walking

Tour

Total distance of suggested walking tour route, beginning at The Spirit of Enterprise and ending at Government of the People, is approximately 2 miles.

PHLASH, Philadelphia’s visitor shuttle, provides direct service between Penn’s Landing and the Museum every 10 to 15 minutes from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. For more information, visit www.gophila.com/phlash.

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The Spirit of Enterprise was Lipchitz’s first

major public commission in the United States.

In 1950 Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park Art

Association asked the artist to create a large

bronze sculpture on the theme of “constructive

enterprise,” which would embody “the vigor, the

power of harnessed nature, or the strength of

men harnessing nature and making it conform to

their uses and desires. The physical power of

men, their imaginative dreams, the surge of their

material expansion, the skill of craftsmanship,

the power of labor.”

The theme of American enterprise inspired

Lipchitz to propose a triumphant explorer of the

New World, who peers into the distance with

one hand shading his forehead as if surveying

the land of opportunity ahead. In his left hand,

he carries a caduceus, the winged staff with

entwined serpents that is the symbol of Mercury,

the Roman god of commerce and transportation.

A great eagle, perched on a stump, guides him in

his quest, a reference to the westward journeys of

the pioneer settlers as they crossed the plains and

mountains in search of a new life. The Spirit ofEnterprise has a resolutely optimistic message. A

symbol of unchained motivation and unfettered

ideals, the sculpture stands in stark contrast to

Lipchitz’s earlier portrayal of Prometheus locked

in combat with a ferocious vulture, reflecting the

changing political situation and the artist’s grow-

ing identification with the patriotic values of his

adopted country, the United States of America.

Prometheus Strangling the Vulture is based

on the Greek myth of Prometheus, which

became the dominant theme in Lipchitz’s work

in the years leading up to World War II. As pun-

ishment for stealing fire from the gods and giving

it to humans, Zeus condemned Prometheus to

be chained to a rocky cliff, where a giant vulture

plucked at his liver, which regenerated nightly.

Eventually freed by Hercules, Prometheus was

hailed by the ancient Greeks as the father of

the arts and sciences. For Lipchitz, Prometheus

represented the ideal of heroic spiritual suffering

and the eventual triumph of good over evil.

Lipchitz made his first large-scale version of

Prometheus Strangling the Vulture for the 1937

World’s Fair in Paris. That work was destroyed

by right-wing sympathizers, who correctly

assumed that Lipchitz had invoked the Greek

myth as a political allegory in which Prometheus

represented the forces of democracy defeating

the vulture of Nazi Germany. Undaunted by

this violent opposition, Lipchitz went on to

exhibit a plaster Prometheus at the Pennsylvania

Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia in

1952. When a fire gutted the artist’s New York

studio that same year, the Philadelphia Museum

of Art moved swiftly to help Lipchitz by pur-

chasing the plaster for $25,000 after the

Academy exhibition closed. In 1953 the grateful

sculptor exchanged the plaster for the bronze

installed here, but he would never again return

to the Prometheus theme.

Government of the People follows an intri-

cate, three-tiered structure: a family group of

father, mother, and child entwine at the base,

while a man and a woman turn in a spiral

motion at the center of the composition as they

hold aloft a cloudlike formation of reclining

nudes at the top. The work’s title suggests the

themes of civic pride and good government,

but the sculpture also embodies Lipchitz’s view

of humanity’s struggle to make a better world

through mutual support and dedication.

Government of the People was Lipchitz’s

last—and most controversial—public commis-

sion in the United States. In 1972, Philadelphia

Mayor Frank L. Rizzo abandoned funding

for the work, saying that it looked “like some

plasterer dropped a load of plaster.” R. Sturgis

Ingersoll, Lipchitz’s great friend and former

president of the Philadelphia Museum of Art,

immediately came to the artist’s defense,

calling Rizzo’s remarks “sickening.” Lipchitz

was extremely surprised and disappointed by

the controversy. Fortunately, the Fairmount

Park Art Association stepped in to ensure the

sculpture would be installed for the nation’s

Bicentennial in 1976. In the end, Mayor Rizzo

changed his mind about the work, admitting,

“The statue by Mr. Lipchitz is beginning to

grow on me. I like it. Even my driver, Tony,

is beginning to like it. You name it, we have

it in Philadelphia.”

Prometheus Strangling the Vulture

Philadelphia Museum of Art (East Entrance)Benjamin Franklin Parkway at 26th Street

The Spirit of Enterprise

Ellen Phillips Samuel Memorial Sculpture GardenKelly Drive north of Boathouse Row

Government of the People

Municipal Services Building Plaza (opposite City Hall)Broad Street and John F. Kennedy Boulevard