page_title: Jacob Epstein
section_title: Work
hierarchical_section_title: Jacob Epstein / Move to Europe / Work
caption_attribution_description: 38 Battalion, Royal Fusiliers Jacob Epstein (1880-1959) was born in New York, United States of America, of Polish parents. After moving to London in 1905, he became a naturalised British citizen in December 1910. Epstein was conscripted in autumn 1917 as a private in the Jewish 38 Battalion, Royal Fusiliers. However, following a breakdown, he was discharged in 1918 without having left England. Epstein was considered for an appointment as an official war artist, but this was never formalised. Faces of the First World War Find out more about this First World War Centenary project at www.1914.org/faces. This image is from IWM Collections.
context_page_description: Sir Jacob Epstein KBE was an American-British sculptor who helped pioneer modern sculpture. He was born in the United States, and moved to Europe in 1902, becoming a British subject in 1911. He often produced controversial works which challenged ideas on what was appropriate subject matter for public artworks. He also made paintings and drawings, and often exhibited his work.
context_section_description: In London, Epstein involved himself with a bohemian and artistic crowd. Revolting against ornate, pretty art, he made bold, often harsh and massive forms of bronze or stone. His sculpture is distinguished by its vigorous rough-hewn realism. Avant-garde in concept and style, his works often shocked his audience. This was not only a result of their (often explicit) sexual content, but also because they deliberately abandoned the conventions of classical Greek sculpture favoured by European academic sculptors, to experiment instead with the aesthetics of art traditions as diverse as those of India, China, ancient Greece, West Africa, and the Pacific Islands. People in Liverpool nicknamed his nude male sculpture over the door of Lewis's department store (1954–56) "Dickie Lewis". Such factors may have focused disproportionate attention on certain aspects of Epstein's long and productive career, throughout which he aroused hostility, especially challenging taboos surrounding the depiction of sexuality.
  London was not ready for Epstein's first major commission – 18 large nude sculptures made in 1908 for the façade of Charles Holden's building for the British Medical Association on The Strand (now Zimbabwe House) were initially considered shocking to Edwardian sensibilities, again mainly due to the perception that they were sexually over-explicit. In art-historical terms, however, the Strand sculptures were controversial for quite a different reason: they represented Epstein's first thoroughgoing attempt to break away from traditional European iconography in favour of elements derived from an alternative sculptural milieu – that of classical India. The female figures in particular may be seen deliberately to incorporate the posture and hand gestures of Buddhist, Jain and Hindu art from the subcontinent in no uncertain terms.  The current, mutilated condition of many of the sculptures is also not entirely connected with prudish censorship; the damage was caused in the 1930s when possibly dangerous projecting features were hacked off after pieces fell from one of the statues.
  One of the most famous of Epstein's early commissions is Oscar Wilde's tomb in Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, "which was condemned as indecent and at one point was covered in tarpaulin by the French police."
  Between 1913 and 1915, Epstein was associated with the short-lived Vorticism movement and produced one of his best known sculptures The Rock Drill.
  In 1915, John Quinn, wealthy American collector and patron to the modernists, bought some Epstein sculptures to add to his private collection.
  In 1916, Epstein was commissioned by Viscount Tredegar to produce a bronze head of Newport poet W. H. Davies. The bronze, regarded by many as the most accurate artistic impression of Davies and a copy of which Davies owned himself, may be found at Newport Museum and Art Gallery
  In 1928, Epstein sculpted the head of the popular singer and film star Paul Robeson. A commission from Holden for the new headquarters building of the London Electric Railway generated another controversy in 1929. His nude sculptures Day and Night above the entrances of 55 Broadway were again considered indecent and a debate raged for some time regarding demands to remove the offending statues which had been carved in-situ. Eventually a compromise was reached to modify the smaller of the two figures represented on Day. But the controversy affected his commissions for public work which dried up until World War II.
  Between the late 1930s and the mid-1950s, numerous works by Epstein were exhibited in Blackpool. Adam, Consummatum Est, Jacob and the Angel and Genesis, and other works, were initially displayed in an old drapery shop surrounded by red velvet curtains. The crowds were ushered in at the cost of a shilling by a barker on the street. After a small tour of American fun fairs, the works were returned to Blackpool and were exhibited in the anatomical curiosities section of Louis Tussaud's waxworks. The works were displayed alongside dancing marionettes, diseased body parts and conjoined ("Siam
caption: Private Jacob Epstein
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