Modigliani was a close friend when Lipchitz came to Paris, to study then to work as an artist. Brancusi was his studio neighbour, through whom he came to befriend Rivera, Picasso, Jacob and others; getting to know Picasso and his work radically influenced Lipchitz’s own direction. He introduced his two friends and fellow Jews Modigliani and Soutine to each other. Stein wrote a pen-portrait of him, while he more conventionally did three of her. Chanel commissioned him, while he commissioned the then little-known Le Corbusier to design a villa for him in Paris.