Mother and Child (Dike and Eirene)

William Zorach represented the bond between mother and child in different compositions. He often formed the figures with very little space between them, creating an inseparable unit in which the mother holds the child in a protective embrace. Zorach worked slowly and painstakingly on his monumental sculptures, often creating smaller studies of the subject. The final carving of Devotion was purchased by the Laurence Rockefellers, while Mother and Child (study) was made into a monumental stone carving that won the Art Institute of Chicago’s Logan Medal in 1931. Zorach spent three difficult years carving it, and afterwards said, “[It] is my finest piece of sculpture.”

“Every artist throughout history has expressed himself through a life motif. I have chosen the mother and child . . . [this composition] is the embodiment and expression of the love of man for his family . . .” William Zorach, Art is My Life, 1967