Tree of Life (Etz Hayim). Three color lithographs. Introduction by Karl Katz.

Lithuanian-born Jacques Lipchitz (1891-1973) was a successful Cubist sculptor who spent many decades in France and in the United States. His last work, The Tree of Life, is a six-meter high bronze executed in 1971 and unveiled posthumously in 1978 alongside the Hadassah Hospital, on Mount Scopus, Jerusalem. The sculpture is a metaphorical representation of life and the genesis of Jewish faith. The base of the sculpture is Abraham with knife in hand referencing his greatest trial of sacrificing Isaac. He supports a series of dynamic shapes and bodies representing the components of the four elements. Images include the ram used in place of Isaac, Noah as synthesis of water and land, Moses before an angel, the other Patriarchs, the burning bush - fire, and the Ten Commandments given atop Sinai - air. These three lithographs are Lipchitz’s treatments for the sculpture, and were printed at the Il Bisonte studio in Florence, Italy in 1971.