KunstenaarSwedish
Jacques Zadig
1 actieve items
Jacques Robert William Zadig was born on April 1, 1930 in Paris, the son of William Zadig, the Swedish sculptor who had made his name in France before settling in Malmö. Jacques grew up in Malmö, and it was there that he began his formal training at the Essem school from 1948 to 1949, before crossing the Öresund to study at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen from 1950 to 1951. The proximity of Copenhagen, with its strong printmaking tradition and openness to continental modernism, shaped his developing sensibility in ways that would persist throughout his career.
His painting practice covers two registers that coexist without contradiction. On one side sits a body of landscape and figure work - beech forests in spring light, coastal dunes on Bornholm, harbour sheds at Limhamn, female figure studies - executed in oil, pastel, gouache, and drawing with an assured, unpretentious touch that owes something to both French post-impressionism and Nordic plein air tradition. Works from the early 1950s already show a confident eye for tone and light, and his gouaches of playing children place him in a line of humane Scandinavian figure painters.
On the other side stands his politically charged work. Inspired by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and the conduct of the Vietnam War, Zadig produced canvases of direct confrontational force. 'Napalm II' from 1969 and the series of works around 'Marken svedjas' (1977-78) - land being scorched - translate geopolitical violence into paint with an urgency that separates them clearly from the aestheticised protest art of the period. He also made prints and drawings with social content, including a colour lithograph series, 'Händelser i rum' (Events in rooms), dated 1966.
He was a consistent presence in Swedish exhibition life: Skåne art association shows in Malmö, the young artists exhibition at Nationalmuseum in the 1950s and 1960s, the spring salon of Konstnärsförbundet, and Stockholm salons at Liljevalchs 1964-1967. In 1980 Sweden's national postal service commissioned a stamp series from him, designed with engraving by Czesław Słania. His work entered public collections including Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Malmö Museum, Kalmar Art Museum, the Postal Museum, Länsmuseet Gävleborg, and the Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende in Santiago. He died in Malmö on June 14, 2023, aged 93.
At auction, Zadig circulates through southern Swedish houses - Crafoord and Garpenhus in Malmö, Limhamns Auktionsbyrå, and Stockholms Auktionsverk Helsingborg. Of 29 lots recorded on Auctionist, the top result stands at 15,000 EUR for a 'Kvinnostudie' (female study in oil), with landscape and nature works typically selling in the 300-3,200 SEK range. The variation in prices reflects the breadth of his output: the political works and museum-quality figure studies command a premium, while his smaller landscape sketches find a wide audience of Scandinavian modernist collectors.