Jean Lambert Rucki

Early life

Born in 1888 in Kraków, Poland, Jean Lambert-Rucki was the youngest of a large family. He was eleven years old when his father died suddenly. A child prodigy, he earned a living by making portraits that surprised the Bourgeoisie of Kraków.

He attended art school in his hometown to pursue his studies, and then went to the School of Fine Arts in Kraków where he became friends with Moïse Kisling, an artist he would soon find in Paris. His youth was marked by the rich folklore of Central Europe. He made several trips to Russia, frequented gypsies, and learned Russian dances. His work throughout his career would remains deeply imbued with the product of these early experiences.

Enthused by an exhibition of works by Gauguin in Kraków, he decided to go to Paris, where he arrived one morning in February 1911 with 17 Francs in his pocket. He immediately met friends of Polish origin who hosted him. Enrolling at the Académie Colarossi, he mingled with bohemian artists of Montparnasse at Le Dôme Café and Café de la Rotonde. There he met Chaim Soutine, Léopold Survage, Tsuguharu Foujita, Blaise Cendrars, Max Jacob and Amedeo Modigliani; with which he shared a room at 8 rue de la Grande-Chaumière in Montparnasse, a studio rented to them by the Polish poet, writer and art dealer Léopold Zborowski.

Lambert-Rucki earned his living by retouching photographs in Montmartre, something which did not fulfill his monetary needs. In 1913 he moved into a studio at 29 rue Campagne Première in the 14th arrondissement of Paris. In 1914 he engaged in the French Foreign Legion to serve France during the war. He changed his name to Jean Lambert-Rucki. Wounded during the war, he was assigned to the Archeological Service at the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki in Greece, where he conducts excavations. He later made copies of the mosaics of Sainte Sophie de Salonique for the Louvre under the direction of Jean Guiffrey the Curator for the Department of Painting, Musées nationaux.

During his military service he befriends the sculptors Joseph Csaky and Gustave Miklos, soon to become the godfather of Lambert-Rucki's daughter Théano, called "Mara". In 1918, demobilized, Lambert-Rucki returned to Paris where he settled at 12 rue du Moulin-de-Beurre in the Montparnasse district.

After World War I

With the support given by Léonce Rosenberg from 1918, Cubism returned as a central issue for artists. With the Parisian Salons dominated by a Return to order, the artist, theorist Albert Gleizes attempted to resuscitate the spirit of the Section d'Or in 1920, with the aim of introducing innovative artists of different nationalities to the general public, and to organize exhibitions with literary and musical auditions in many countries. Further support for the endeavor came from Fernand Léger, Alexander Archipenko, Georges Braque, Constantin Brâncuși, Henri Laurens, Jacques Villon, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Louis Marcoussis, Joseph Csaky, Léopold Survage and Jean Lambert-Rucki.

In 1920 Lambert-Rucki married Monique Bickel (born 1892), herself a pupil of the sculptor Auguste Rodin. Their daughter Mara Rucki was born 7 April 1920.

In 1923 he became friends with the Coppersmith Jean Dunand, with whom he would work for the next twenty years. He refuses the proposal of Jean Dunand to co-sign their works (except at the very beginning of their cooperation).

From 1925 to the end of his life, Lambert-Rucki exhibits his works, many of which were commissioned, throughout Europe, Canada and the United States, and churches ( large renovations after the Great War). The same year, he collaborated with Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann and Jean Dunand for the International Exposition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts of 1925, the exhibition that epitomized what came to be called decades later Art Deco, a "modern" style characterized by a streamlined geometric and symmetric compositions, and a sleek machine-age look.

From 1930, Lambert-Rucki became one of the pioneers of Modern Religious Art. In 1931, he became an active member of the Union des Artistes Modernes (UAM), where he exhibited alongside René Herbst, Charles-Edouard Jeanneret (Le Corbusier), Robert Mallet-Stevens, the architect Georges-Henri Pingusson, Jean Fouquet (for whom he made jewelery), in exhibits that emphasized design over decoration.

Jean Lambert-Rucki became a naturalized French citizen in 1932.

In 1933, he left his Montparnasse studio for one at 26 rue des Plantes, Paris 14th. In May 1943, he participated in a group exhibition of artists in the "2ème groupe" at Galerie Drouant-David in Paris. In 1967, at the age of 80, he died from a vascular disease.

He remained solitary throughout his life, fleeing the world with its demands and its vanities. His raison d'être was the incessant need to create something "new".

Exhibitions during his life-time

Selected works

Selected literature

Catalogue raisonné

A Catalogue raisonné of the works of Jean Lambert-Rucki is being prepared by the Comité Jean Lambert-Rucki (an association created 29 October 2008 and declared in the Journal Officiel 12 November 2008).