There are very few examples of Jacques Lipchitz's early sculpture as many of the pieces he created pre-1915 were destroyed by Lipchitz himself during an emotional episode. We can see from the few sculptures which do remain intact how Lipchitz makes a progression from figurative to cubist. One of the earliest surviving sculptures simply entitled Head created in 1914 has cubist elements such as an angular jaw and nose but the back of the head and neck are textural and organic. His move into cubism was undoubtedly due to his friendships with Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque.

Seated Woman in Armchair sees this shift into cubism become more definitive. The curve of the armchair envelopes the small rectangular figure in the middle of the chair. The shapes are angular, even the curve has very definite sides and none of the organic textures which can be seen within Head remain. In Jacques Lipchitz: Sketches in Bronze, H. Harvard Arnason gives an explanation of Seated Woman in Armchair stating:

‘A slightly surrealist quality is introduced by the eyes which are part of the chair form. Thus, the figure of Seated Woman in Armchair becomes in a sense a “woman-chair.” This small sketch illustrates some of the characteristics of a first idea, since it is realised only from a single view. If it had been developed, Lipchitz would undoubtedly have completed the form in the round.’

Although his style became more abstract, the human figure remained the focus for much of his sculpture. Though Lipchitz argued that the humanity in his work was not expressed through the form but through the creation of the work itself, it was his view that Cubism was ‘a celebration of mankind’s creativity, engaging the active involvement of the viewer’s imagination through surprise and metaphor’.