jacob epstein : definition of jacob epstein and synonyms of jacob epstein (English) 9 External links Early life and education Epstein's parents were Polish Jewish refugees, [6] [7] living on New York's Lower East Side . His family was middle-class, and he was the third of five children. His interest in drawing came from long periods of illness; as a child he suffered from pleurisy . He studied art in his native New York as a teenager, sketching the city, and joined the Art Students League of New York in 1900. For his livelihood, he worked in a bronze foundry by day, studying drawing and sculptural modeling at night. Epstein's first major commission was to illustrate Hutchins Hapgood 's Spirit of the Ghetto. The money from the commission was used by Epstein to move to Paris. Move to Europe Jan Smuts in Parliament Square , London Moving to Europe in 1902, he studied in Paris at the Académie Julian and the École des Beaux-Arts . He settled in London in 1905 and married Margaret Dunlop in 1906.

[8] In 1911 he became a British subject . [9] Many of Epstein's works were sculpted at his two cottages in Loughton , Essex, where he lived first at number 49 then 50, Baldwin's Hill (there is a blue plaque on number 50). He served briefly in the 38th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers aka the Jewish Legion during World War I. Work 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, West Africa, and the Pacific Islands. [10] People in Liverpool , however, nicknamed his nude male sculpture over the door of Lewis's department store "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. Jacob Epstein in 1934, photograph by Carl Van Vechten 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 over-explicit sexually. 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 to incorporate the posture and hand gestures of Buddhist , Jain and Hindu art from the subcontinent in no uncertain terms.

[11] [12] 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 the tomb of Oscar Wilde in Père Lachaise Cemetery , Paris, "which was condemned as indecent and at one point was covered in tarpaulin by the French police." [13] Epstein's 1913 sculpture The Rock Drill in its original form. It is now lost. 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 an Epstein sculpture to add his private collection. [14] In 1916 Epstein was commissioned by Viscount Tredegar to produces 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 [15] 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 (amongst other less notable 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 the Louis Tussaud's waxworks. The works were displayed alongside dancing marionettes , diseased body parts and Siamese twin babies in jars. Placing Epstein within the context of freakish curiosity, especially at a time of such hostility towards the Jews, perhaps added to Epstein's decision not to create further large-scale direct carvings . St Michael's Victory over the Devil (1958), on the new Coventry Cathedral Bronze portrait sculpture formed one of Epstein's staple products, and perhaps the best known. These sculptures were often executed with roughly textured surfaces, expressively manipulating small surface planes and facial details. Some fine examples are in the National Portrait Gallery . Another famous example is the bust of legendary Arsenal manager Herbert Chapman that sat in the marble halls of Highbury for many years before being moved to the new Emirates Stadium . Epstein's aluminium figure of Christ in Majesty (1954-5), is suspended above the nave in Llandaff Cathedral , Cardiff , on a concrete arch designed by George Pace . His larger sculptures were his most expressive and experimental, but also his most vulnerable.

His depiction of Rima, one of author W. H. Hudson 's most famous characters, graces a serene enclosure in Hyde Park . Even here, a visitor became so outraged as to defile it with paint. He was one of 250 sculptors who exhibited in the 3rd Sculpture International held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the summer of 1949. Epstein would often sculpt the images of friends, casual acquaintances, and even people dragged from the street into his studio almost at random. He worked even on his dying day. He also painted; many of his watercolours and gouaches were of Epping Forest , where he lived (at Loughton ) and sculpted. These were often exhibited at the Leicester Gallery in London. His Monkwood Autumn and Pool, Epping Forest date from 1944-45. Epstein was Jewish, [16] [17] [18] [19] and negative reviews of his work sometimes took on an antisemitic flavor, though he did not attribute the "average unfavorable criticism" of his work to antisemitism.

[20] Epstein met Albert Einstein at Roughton Heath , Norfolk , in 1933 and had three sittings for a bust. He remembered his meeting with Einstein as, "His glance contained a mixture of the humane, the humorous and the profound. This was a combination which delighted me. He resembled the ageing Rembrandt." [21] Personal life Kathleen, in the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery Despite being married to and continuing to live with Margaret, Epstein had a number of relationships with other women that brought him his five children: Peggy Jean (born 1918), Theo (1924–1954), Kathleen (Kitty, born 1926), Esther (1929–1954) and Jackie (born 1934). Margaret generally tolerated these relationships — even to the extent of bringing up his first and last children. In 1921 Epstein began the longest of these relationships with Kathleen Garman , one of the Garman sisters , [22] mother of his three middle children, which continued until his death.

Margaret "tolerated Epstein's infidelities, allowed his models and lovers to live in the family home and raised Epstein's first child, Peggy Jean, who was the daughter of Meum Lindsell, one of Epstein's previous lovers. However, Margaret's tolerance did not extend to Epstein's relationship with Kathleen Garman, and in 1923 Margaret shot and wounded Kathleen in the shoulder." [13] Margaret Epstein died in 1947, and after Epstein was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1954 New Year Honours [23] he married Kathleen Garman in 1955. Kitty married painter Lucian Freud in 1948 and is mother of two of his daughters, Annie and Annabel. In 1953 they divorced. She married a second time in 1955, to economist Wynne Godley .[ citation needed ] They have one daughter. Death and legacy Epstein died 21 August 1959 in London [3] and is buried in Putney Vale Cemetery .

A blue plaque may be found at "Deerhurst", 50 Baldwins Hill in Loughton , which was his home from 1933 to 1950. [24] The Garman Ryan Collection, including several works by Epstein, was donated to the people of Walsall , by Lady Epstein in 1973. It is on display in Walsall Art Gallery . [25] His art is displayed all over the world; [26] highly original for its time, its influence on the younger generation of sculptors such as Henry Moore [27] [28] and Barbara Hepworth [29] was significant. According to June Rose, in her biography, Moore was befriended by the older sculptor during the early 1920s and visited Epstein in his studio. Epstein, along with Moore and Hepworth, all expressed a deep fascination with the non-western art from the British Museum .

Selected major pieces Below is a brief overview of key texts by or relating to Epstein: Buckle, Richard , Jacob Epstein : sculptor , (London: Faber 1963) Cork, Richard , Jacob Epstein, (London: Tate Gallery Publishing, 1999) Cronshaw, Jonathan , Carving a Legacy: The Identity of Jacob Epstein, (PhD Thesis, University of Leeds, 2010) Cronshaw, Jonathan , "this work was never commissioned at all": Jacob Epstein's Madonna and Child (1950-52), Art and Christianity 66, Summer 2011. Epstein, Jacob, The sculptor speaks : Jacob Epstein to Arnold L. Haskell , a series of conversations on art, (London : W.

Heinemann, 1931.) Epstein, Jacob, Let there be sculpture : an autobiography, (London: Michael Joseph, 1940) Friedman, Terry, 'The Hyde Park atrocity' : Epstein's Rima : creation and controversy (Leeds: Henry Moore Centre for the Study of Sculpture, 1988) Gardner, Stephen, Jacob Epstein: Artist Against the Establishment, (London: Joseph, 1992) Hapgood, Hutchins , The spirit of the ghetto : studies of the Jewish quarter of New York; with drawings from life by Jacob Epstein, (New York ; London : Funk and Wagnalls, 1909) Silber, Evelyn, et al. Jacob Epstein : sculpture and drawings, (Leeds : Leeds City Art Galleries ; London : Whitechapel Art Gallery, 1987) Turner, Colin , A Caricature of a Sculptor.

Jacob Epstein and the British Press: a critical analysis of old history and new evidence, (PhD Thesis, Loughborough University, 2009) Carving mountains : modern stone sculptures in England 1907-37 : Frank Dobson , Jacob Epstein, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska , Eric Gill , Barbara Hepworth , Henry Moore , Ben Nicholson , John Skeaping . (Cambridge: Kettles Yard, 1998) External links Jacob Epstein : Wikis (The Full Wiki) The Full Wiki More info on Jacob Epstein Wikis Note: Many of our articles have direct quotes from sources you can cite, within the Wikipedia article! This article doesn't yet, but we're working on it! See more info or our list of citable articles . Related top topics Top rankings for Jacob Epstein 47th Top sculptors Did you know ... More interesting facts on Jacob Epstein Include this on your site/blog: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia For other persons named Jacob Epstein, see Jacob Epstein (disambiguation) .

Jacob Epstein Jacob Epstein photographed by Carl Van Vechten , 1934 Born August 19, 1959 (aged 78) Field Sculpture Sir Jacob Epstein (10 November 1880 – 19 August 1959) was an American-born British sculptor who worked chiefly in the UK, where he pioneered modern sculpture , often producing controversial works that challenged taboos concerning what public artworks appropriately depict. He also painted, and exhibited pictures regularly in exhibitions. [1] Contents 8 External links Life Epstein's parents were Polish Jewish refugees living on New York 's Lower East Side . His family were middle-class Orthodox Jews , and he was the third of five children. His interest in drawing came from long periods of illness; as a child he suffered from pleurisy . From a young age, Epstein rejected his family's orthodoxy and grew tired of religious ceremony. He took an interest in pantheism and anarchism , but claimed in his autobiography that his only real interest was art, and that he was never politically or religiously active as an adult.

He studied art in his native New York as a teenager, sketching the city, and joined the Art Students League of New York in 1900. For his livelihood, he worked in a bronze foundry by day, studying drawing and sculptural modeling at night. Epstein's first major commission was to illustrate Hutchins Hapgood 's Spirit of the Ghetto. The money from the commission was used by Epstein to move to Paris . Moving to Europe in 1902, he studied in Paris at the Académie Julian and the École des Beaux-Arts . He settled in London in 1905, and after marrying Margaret Dunlop in 1907 he became a British citizen. Many of Epstein's works were sculpted at his two cottages in Loughton , Essex, where he lived first at number 49 then 50, Baldwin's Hill (see the blue plaque on number 50). He served briefly in the 38th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers aka the Jewish Legion during World War I .

Despite being married to and continuing to live with Margaret, Epstein had a number of relationships with other women that brought him his five children; Peggy Jean (born 1918), Theo (born 1924-died 1954), Kathleen (Kitty, born 1926), Esther (born 1929-died 1954) and Jackie (born 1934). His first wife, Margaret generally tolerated these relationships — even to the extent of bringing up his first and last children. Margaret, "tolerated Epstein's infidelities, allowed his models and lovers to live in the family home and raised Epstein's first child, Peggy Jean, who was the daughter of Meum Lindsell, one of Epstein's previous lovers. However, Margaret's tolerance did not extend to Epstein's relationship with Kathleen Garman, and in 1923 Margaret shot and wounded Kathleen in the shoulder." [2] In 1921 Epstein began the longest of these relationships with Kathleen Garman , one of the Garman sisters, [3] mother of his three middle children, which continued until his death.

Margaret Epstein died in 1947 and after Epstein was knighted in 1954 he married Kathleen Garman in 1955. Kitty married painter Lucian Freud — grandson of Sigmund Freud — in 1948 and is mother of two of his daughters, Annie and Annabel. In 1953 they divorced. She married a second time in 1955, to economist Wynne Godley. [4] They have one daughter. The Garman Ryan Collection, [5] including several works by Epstein, was donated to the people of Walsall , by Lady Epstein in 1973. It is on display in Walsall Art Gallery . [6] Although Epstein's work was highly original for its time, its influence on the younger generation of sculptors such as Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth may have been limited , as much of Epstein's work was not on public display but in a few private collections, mainly in the United States. However, according to June Rose, in her biography, Moore was befriended by the older sculptor during the early 1920s and visited Epstein in his studio.

Epstein, along with Moore and Hepworth, all expressed a deep fascination with the non-western art from the British Museum . Epstein is buried in Putney Vale Cemetery . Work Jacob Epstein, photographed in 1924 by George Charles Beresford 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 . Brilliantly avant-garde in concept and style, his works often shocked the general public. He often used expressively distorted figures, drawing more on non-Western art than the classical ideal. People in Liverpool nicknamed his nude male sculpture over the door of Lewis's department store "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. One of the most famous of Epstein's early commissions is the tomb of Oscar Wilde in Pere Lachaise cemetery, Paris , "which was condemned as indecent and at one point was covered in tarpaulin by the French police." [2] However, the mutilated condition of many of the sculptures has nothing to do with prudish censorship; it was caused in the 1930s when possibly dangerous projecting features were hacked-off after pieces fell from one of the statues. Between 1913 and 1915 Epstein was associated with the short-lived Vorticism movement and produced one of his best known sculptures The Rock Drill. 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 (amongst other less notable 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 the Louis Tussaud's waxworks. The works were displayed alongside dancing marionettes , diseased body parts and Siamese twin babies in jars.

Placing Epstein within the context of freakish curiosity, especially at a time of such hostility towards the Jews, perhaps added to Epstein's decision not to create further large-scale direct carvings . Bronze portrait sculpture formed one of Epstein's staple products, and perhaps the best known. These sculptures were often executed with roughly textured surfaces, expressively manipulating small surface planes and facial details. Some fine examples are in the National Portrait Gallery . Another famous example is the bust of legendary Arsenal manager Herbert Chapman that sat in the marble halls of Highbury for many years before being moved to the new Emirates Stadium . Epstein's aluminium figure of Christ in Majesty (1954-5), is suspended above the nave in Llandaff Cathedral , Cardiff , on a concrete arch designed by George Pace . His larger sculptures were his most expressive and experimental, but also his most vulnerable. His depiction of Rima, one of author W. H. Hudson 's most famous characters, graces a serene enclosure in Hyde Park . Even here, a visitor became so outraged as to defile it with paint.

Epstein was one of 250 sculptors who exhibited in the 3rd Sculpture International held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the summer of 1949. Enthusiastic about his work, Epstein would sculpt the images of friends, casual acquaintances, and even people dragged from the street into his studio almost at random. He worked even on his dying day. Epstein also painted. Many of his watercolours and gouaches were of Epping Forest , where he lived (at Loughton ) and sculpted. These were often exhibited at the Leicester Gallery in London. His "Monkwood Autumn" and "Pool, Epping Forest" date from 1944-45. The character of 'Wetherill' in E.C. Bentley 's detective novel 'Trent's Own Case' is a hostile depiction of Epstein.

Notes Liverpool Resurgent, Lewis's , Liverpool Quotations "To accuse me of making sensations is the easiest way of attacking me, and in reality leaves the question of sculpture untouched." - Jacob Epstein, An Autobiography (London, 1955), p.29 "A wife, a lover, can perhaps never see what the artist sees. They rarely ever do. Perhaps a really mediocre artist has more chance of success." — Jacob Epstein "The artist is the world's scapegoat." — Jacob Epstein Bibliography Below is a brief overview of key texts by or relating to Epstein: Buckle, Richard , Jacob Epstein : sculptor , (London: Faber 1963) Cork, Richard, Jacob Epstein, (London: Tate Gallery Publishing, 1999) Cronshaw, Jonathan, The Sideshow and the Problems of History: Jacob Epstein's Adam (1939). (University of Leeds, 2005) Epstein, Jacob, The sculptor speaks : Jacob Epstein to Arnold L. Haskell , a series of conversations on art, (London : W.

Heinemann, 1931.) Epstein, Jacob, Let there be sculpture : an autobiography, (London: Michael Joseph, 1940) Friedman, Terry, 'The Hyde Park atrocity' : Epstein's Rima : creation and controversy (Leeds: Henry Moore Centre for the Study of Sculpture, 1988) Gardner, Stephen, Jacob Epstein: Artist Against the Establishment, (London: Joseph, 1992) Hapgood, Hutchins, The spirit of the ghetto : studies of the Jewish quarter of New York; with drawings from life by Jacob Epstein, (New York ; London : Funk and Wagnalls, 1909) Silber, Evelyn et al. Jacob Epstein : sculpture and drawings, (Leeds : Leeds City Art Galleries ; London : Whitechapel Art Gallery, 1987) Turner, Colin, A Caricature of a Sculptor.

Jacob Epstein and the British Press: a critical analysis of old history and new evidence, (PhD Thesis, Loughborough University, 2009) Carving mountains : modern stone sculptures in England 1907-37 : Frank Dobson , Jacob Epstein, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska , Eric Gill , Barbara Hepworth , Henry Moore , Ben Nicholson , John Skeaping . (Cambridge: Kettles Yard, 1998) External links Jacob Epstein An article on Jacob Epstein's work on The National Archives website. Includes references to files held at The National Archives.

Jacob Epstein (1880 - 1959) - Genealogy Jacob Epstein Share your family tree and photos with the people you know and love Build your family tree online Share photos and videos New York, New York County, New York, United States Death: American-born British sculptor who helped pioneer modern sculpture Managed by: Added 2013-04-12 14:06:12 -0700 by Peter Rohel (c) Collection: Nov 10 1880 - New York, USA Death: Aug 19 1959 - London, England Wife: Kathleen ''kitty'' Epstein (born Garman) Wife: NewspaperARCHIVE.com Text: ... I He believed the GOP tax' program, beefed tip since then. Jacob Epstein, noted American- was insufficient ... of the accident victims. ... Date: NewspaperARCHIVE.com Text: "...LONDON (AP> - Sir Jacob Epstein, noted American bom British sculptor, died at his London home Wednesday night. The death was announc... Date: NewspaperARCHIVE.com Text: ...

LONDON (AP) — Sir Jacob I Epstein, noted American - bom British sculptor, died àt lù ... . The quakes; death toll, pieatir while,, reach... Date: Newspaper Archive Text: ... to ants' .eggs. Sfie will hook him again, the creature" Sir Jacob -Epstein, English sculp, lor ... without authorization of the professi... Date: NewspaperARCHIVE.com Text: ... Sculptor Epstein Dies in London LONDON (UPI)—Sir Jacob Ep-stein, modern sculptor, died in his London home Wednesday, itwas reported. He ... Date: NewspaperARCHIVE.com Text: "...LONDON (AP)—Sir Jacob Epstein, who rose from the East Side slums of New York to world fame as a sculptor, is dead at 78 of heart trou... Date: NewspaperARCHIVE.com Text: "...OA Mdoy, August 21,Itiw � A JOPUN NEWS HERALD Jacob born Jacob Epstein, Noted Debated Sculptor, Dies LONDON (AP) - Sir Epstein, noted... Date: NewspaperARCHIVE.com Text: "...to trade in western Iowa.

Bill Burgess Motor Co._76-284-tfc Epstein, Noted Sculptor, Is Dead � LONDON (APi - Sir Jacob Epstein,... Date: NewspaperARCHIVE.com Text: ... Epstein Famed Sculptor Dies in Britain LONDON - i/P) - Sir Jacob Epstein, 78 ... , noted American-born British sculptor, died at his Lon... Date: Nov 10 1880 - New York City, New York Death: Aug 21 1959 - London, England Parents: Max Epstein, Mary Epstein (born Solomon) Brother: Kathleen Kitty Epstein (born Garman) Daughter: Nov 10 1880 - New York City Death: brother About Jacob Epstein Sir Jacob Epstein KBE (10 November 1880 – 19 August 1959) was an American-born British sculptor who helped pioneer modern sculpture. He was born in the United States, and moved to Europe in 1902, becoming a British citizen in 1911. He often produced controversial works which challenged taboos on what was appropriate subject matter for public artworks. He also made paintings and drawings, and often exhibited his work.

Early life and education Epstein's parents were Polish Jewish refugees, living on New York's Lower East Side. His family was middle-class, and he was the third of five children. His interest in drawing came from long periods of illness; as a child he suffered from pleurisy. He studied art in his native New York as a teenager, sketching the city, and joined the Art Students League of New York in 1900. For his livelihood, he worked in a bronze foundry by day, studying drawing and sculptural modeling at night. Epstein's first major commission was to illustrate Hutchins Hapgood's Spirit of the Ghetto. The money from the commission was used by Epstein to move to Paris. Move to Europe Moving to Europe in 1902, he studied in Paris at the Académie Julian and the École des Beaux-Arts. He settled in London in 1905 and married Margaret Dunlop in 1906. In 1911 he became a British subject.

Many of Epstein's works were sculpted at his two cottages in Loughton, Essex, where he lived first at number 49 then 50, Baldwin's Hill (there is a blue plaque on number 50). He served briefly in the 38th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers aka the Jewish Legion during World War I. Work 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, West Africa, and the Pacific Islands. People in Liverpool, however, nicknamed his nude male sculpture over the door of Lewis's department store "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 over-explicit sexually. 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 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 the tomb of Oscar Wilde in Pere 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 an Epstein sculpture to add his private collection. In 1916 Epstein was commmissined by Viscount Tredegar to produces 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 (amongst other less notable 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 the Louis Tussaud's waxworks. The works were displayed alongside dancing marionettes, diseased body parts and Siamese twin babies in jars.

Placing Epstein within the context of freakish curiosity, especially at a time of such hostility towards the Jews, perhaps added to Epstein's decision not to create further large-scale direct carvings. Bronze portrait sculpture formed one of Epstein's staple products, and perhaps the best known. These sculptures were often executed with roughly textured surfaces, expressively manipulating small surface planes and facial details. Some fine examples are in the National Portrait Gallery. Another famous example is the bust of legendary Arsenal manager Herbert Chapman that sat in the marble halls of Highbury for many years before being moved to the new Emirates Stadium. Epstein's aluminium figure of Christ in Majesty (1954-5), is suspended above the nave in Llandaff Cathedral, Cardiff, on a concrete arch designed by George Pace. His larger sculptures were his most expressive and experimental, but also his most vulnerable. His depiction of Rima, one of author W. H. Hudson's most famous characters, graces a serene enclosure in Hyde Park. Even here, a visitor became so outraged as to defile it with paint.

He was one of 250 sculptors who exhibited in the 3rd Sculpture International held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the summer of 1949. Epstein would often sculpt the images of friends, casual acquaintances, and even people dragged from the street into his studio almost at random. He worked even on his dying day. He also painted; many of his watercolours and gouaches were of Epping Forest, where he lived (at Loughton) and sculpted. These were often exhibited at the Leicester Gallery in London. His Monkwood Autumn and Pool, Epping Forest date from 1944-45. Epstein was Jewish, and negative reviews of his work sometimes took on an antisemitic flavor, though he did not attribute the "average unfavorable criticism" of his work to antisemitism. Epstein met Albert Einstein at Roughton Heath, Norfolk, in 1933 and had three sittings for a bust. He remembered his meeting with Einstein as, "His glance contained a mixture of the humane, the humorous and the profound. This was a combination which delighted me.

He resembled the ageing Rembrandt." Personal life Despite being married to and continuing to live with Margaret, Epstein had a number of relationships with other women that brought him his five children: Peggy Jean (born 1918), Theo (1924–1954), Kathleen (Kitty, born 1926), Esther (1929–1954) and Jackie (born 1934). Margaret generally tolerated these relationships — even to the extent of bringing up his first and last children. In 1921 Epstein began the longest of these relationships with Kathleen Garman, one of the Garman sisters, mother of his three middle children, which continued until his death. Margaret "tolerated Epstein's infidelities, allowed his models and lovers to live in the family home and raised Epstein's first child, Peggy Jean, who was the daughter of Meum Lindsell, one of Epstein's previous lovers.

However, Margaret's tolerance did not extend to Epstein's relationship with Kathleen Garman, and in 1923 Margaret shot and wounded Kathleen in the shoulder." Margaret Epstein died in 1947, and after Epstein was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1954 New Year Honours he married Kathleen Garman in 1955. Kitty married painter Lucian Freud in 1948 and is mother of two of his daughters, Annie and Annabel. In 1953 they divorced. She married a second time in 1955, to economist Wynne Godley. They have one daughter. Death and legacy Epstein died 21 August 1959 in London and is buried in Putney Vale Cemetery. A blue plaque may be found at "Deerhurst", 50 Baldwins Hill in Loughton, which was his home from 1933 to 1950. The Garman Ryan Collection, including several works by Epstein, was donated to the people of Walsall, by Lady Epstein in 1973. It is on display in Walsall Art Gallery.

His art is displayed all over the world; highly original for its time, its influence on the younger generation of sculptors such as Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth was significant. According to June Rose, in her biography, Moore was befriended by the older sculptor during the early 1920s and visited Epstein in his studio. Epstein, along with Moore and Hepworth, all expressed a deep fascination with the non-western art from the British Museum. Selected major pieces 1907–8 Ages of Man - British Medical Association headquarters, The Strand, London — mutilated/destroyed 1911 Oscar Wilde Memorial — the Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris 1913–4 The Rock Drill Bronze — the Tate Collection(symbolising 'the terrible Frankenstein's monster we have made ourselves into') 1917 Venus marble — Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut 1919 Christ Bronze — Wheathampstead, England 1923 W. H. Hudson Memorial, Rima — Hyde Park, London 1928–9 Night and Day Portland Stone — 55 Broadway, St.

James', London 1933 Head of Albert Einstein Bronze — Honolulu Academy of Arts 1939 Adam Alabaster — Blackpool, England. Now residing in Harewood House, Leeds 1940-1 Jacob and the Angel Alabaster — the Tate Collection (originally controversially "anatomical") 1947 Lazarus Alabaster — New College, Oxford 1950 Madonna and Child Bronze — Convent of the Holy Child Jesus, London 1954 Social Consciousness — Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia 1956 Liverpool Resurgent — Lewis's Building, Liverpool *1958 St Michael's Victory over the Devil Bronze — Coventry Cathedral 1959 Rush of Green — Hyde Park, London Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jacob Epstein Jacob Epstein Liverpool Resurgent Early life and education Epstein's parents were Polish Jewish refugees,[6][7] living on New York's Lower East Side. His family was middle-class, and he was the third of five children. His interest in drawing came from long periods of illness; as a child he suffered from pleurisy.

He studied art in his native New York as a teenager, sketching the city, and joined the Art Students League of New York in 1900. For his livelihood, he worked in a bronze foundry by day, studying drawing and sculptural modeling at night. Epstein's first major commission was to illustrate Hutchins Hapgood's Spirit of the Ghetto. The money from the commission was used by Epstein to move to Paris. Move to Europe Moving to Europe in 1902, he studied in Paris at the Académie Julian and the École des Beaux-Arts. He settled in London in 1905 and married Margaret Dunlop in 1906.[8] In 1911 he became a British subject.[9] Many of Epstein's works were sculpted at his two cottages in Loughton, Essex, where he lived first at number 49 then 50, Baldwin's Hill (there is a blue plaque on number 50). He served briefly in the 38th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers aka the Jewish Legion during World War I. Work 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. He often used expressively distorted figures, drawing more on non-Western art than the classical ideal. People in Liverpool nicknamed his nude male sculpture over the door of Lewis's department store "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. Jacob Epstein in 1934, photograph by Carl Van Vechten 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.

One of the most famous of Epstein's early commissions is the tomb of Oscar Wilde in Pere Lachaise cemetery, Paris, "which was condemned as indecent and at one point was covered in tarpaulin by the French police."[10] However, the mutilated condition of many of the sculptures has nothing to do with prudish censorship; it was caused in the 1930s when possibly dangerous projecting features were hacked-off after pieces fell from one of the statues. 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 an Epstein sculpture to add his private collection.[11] 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 (amongst other less notable 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 the Louis Tussaud's waxworks. The works were displayed alongside dancing marionettes, diseased body parts and Siamese twin babies in jars. Placing Epstein within the context of freakish curiosity, especially at a time of such hostility towards the Jews, perhaps added to Epstein's decision not to create further large-scale direct carvings. Bronze portrait sculpture formed one of Epstein's staple products, and perhaps the best known. These sculptures were often executed with roughly textured surfaces, expressively manipulating small surface planes and facial details. Some fine examples are in the National Portrait Gallery.

Another famous example is the bust of legendary Arsenal manager Herbert Chapman that sat in the marble halls of Highbury for many years before being moved to the new Emirates Stadium. Epstein's aluminium figure of Christ in Majesty (1954-5), is suspended above the nave in Llandaff Cathedral, Cardiff, on a concrete arch designed by George Pace. His larger sculptures were his most expressive and experimental, but also his most vulnerable. His depiction of Rima, one of author W. H. Hudson's most famous characters, graces a serene enclosure in Hyde Park. Even here, a visitor became so outraged as to defile it with paint. He was one of 250 sculptors who exhibited in the 3rd Sculpture International held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the summer of 1949. Epstein would often sculpt the images of friends, casual acquaintances, and even people dragged from the street into his studio almost at random. He worked even on his dying day. He also painted; many of his watercolours and gouaches were of Epping Forest, where he lived (at Loughton) and sculpted. These were often exhibited at the Leicester Gallery in London.

His Monkwood Autumn and Pool, Epping Forest date from 1944-45. Epstein was Jewish,[12][13][14][15] and negative reviews of his work sometimes took on an antisemitic flavor, though he did not attribute the "average unfavorable criticism" of his work to antisemitism.[16] Personal life Despite being married to and continuing to live with Margaret, Epstein had a number of relationships with other women that brought him his five children: Peggy Jean (born 1918), Theo (1924–1954), Kathleen (Kitty, born 1926), Esther (1929–1954) and Jackie (born 1934). Margaret generally tolerated these relationships — even to the extent of bringing up his first and last children. In 1921 Epstein began the longest of these relationships with Kathleen Garman, one of the Garman sisters,[17] mother of his three middle children, which continued until his death.

Margaret "tolerated Epstein's infidelities, allowed his models and lovers to live in the family home and raised Epstein's first child, Peggy Jean, who was the daughter of Meum Lindsell, one of Epstein's previous lovers. However, Margaret's tolerance did not extend to Epstein's relationship with Kathleen Garman, and in 1923 Margaret shot and wounded Kathleen in the shoulder."[10] Margaret Epstein died in 1947, and after Epstein was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1954 New Year Honours[18] he married Kathleen Garman in 1955. Kitty married painter Lucian Freud in 1948 and is mother of two of his daughters, Annie and Annabel. In 1953 they divorced. She married a second time in 1955, to economist Wynne Godley.[citation needed] They have one daughter. Death and legacy Epstein died 21 August 1959 in London[3] and is buried in Putney Vale Cemetery.

The Garman Ryan Collection, including several works by Epstein, was donated to the people of Walsall, by Lady Epstein in 1973. It is on display in Walsall Art Gallery.[19] His art is displayed all over the world;[20] highly original for its time, its influence on the younger generation of sculptors such as Henry Moore[21][22] and Barbara Hepworth[23] was significant. According to June Rose, in her biography, Moore was befriended by the older sculptor during the early 1920s and visited Epstein in his studio. Epstein, along with Moore and Hepworth, all expressed a deep fascination with the non-western art from the British Museum.

Selected major pieces * 1907–8 Ages of Man [1] - British Medical Association headquarters, The Strand, London — mutilated/destroyed * 1911 Oscar Wilde Memorial — the Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris * 1913–4 The Rock Drill [2] (symbolising 'the terrible Frankenstein's monster we have made ourselves into') * 1917 marble Venus — Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut * 1919 bronze Christ — Wheathampstead, England * 1923 W. H. Hudson Memorial, Rima [3] — Hyde Park, London * 1928–9 Night and Day — 55 Broadway, St. James', London * 1933 Head of Albert Einstein — Honolulu Academy of Arts * 1939 Adam in alabaster — Blackpool, England.

Now residing in Harewood House, Leeds * 1940 Jacob and the Angel [4] — the Tate Gallery Collection (originally controversially "anatomical") * 1947 Lazarus — New College, Oxford * 1950 Madonna and Child [5] — Convent of the Holy Child Jesus, London * 1954 Social Consciousness [6] — Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia * 1958 St Michael's Victory over the Devil — Coventry Cathedral * 1959 Rush of Green [7] — Hyde Park, London Sculptures Kathlene, in the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery Bust of Joseph Conrad (1924) in Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery Bust of Einstein (1933) in Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery Day and Night (1928) Portland stone, carved for the London Electric Railway headquarters were considered too shocking when they were unveiled Jan Smuts in Parliament Square, London The Archangel Lucifer (1944-5) in the round gallery of Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery St Michael's Victory over the Devil (1958), on the new Coventry Cathedral Liverpool Resurgent, Lewis's, Liverpool Notes 1

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^ Epstein, Sir Jacob. The Houghton Mifflin Dictionary of Biography, p. 498. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2003. ISBN 9780618252107 2. ^ "Epstein, Jacob" entry in Academic American Encyclopedia, vol. 10, p. 223. Grolier Incorporated, 1994. ISBN 0717220532 3. ^ a b Encyclopedia Britannica. Sir Jacob Epstein ( British sculptor) 4. ^ "Epstein, Jacob" entry in Futurism & Futurisms, p. 472. Abbeville Press, 1986. ISBN 0896596753 5. ^ Carrick Hill, Jacob Epstein 6. ^ Jewish Virtual Library. Sir Jacob Epstein (1880-1959) 7. ^ Schreiber, Mordecai; Schiff, Alvin I.; Klenicki, Leon. The Shengold Jewish Encyclopedia, p. 33. Schreiber Pub., 2003.

ISBN 9781887563772 8. ^ See General Register Office index entries, Marriages Dec 1906—Epstein, Jacob and Marriages Dec 1906—Dunlop, Margaret, FreeBMD, Office of National Statistics. Retrieved on 26 August 2010. 9. ^ London Gazette: no. 28462, p. 874, 3 February 1911. 10. ^ a b Jacob Epstein 11. ^ Stock, Noel (1970). The Life of Ezra Pound. Pantheon Books. p. 202 12. ^ "ART: Familiar Sensation", TIME, March 25, 1935. "The spectacle to which he referred was an 11-ft., 7-ton statue of Christ propped against the wall in London's swank Leicester Galleries, the latest work of a heavyset, U.S.-born Jewish sculptor, Jacob Epstein." 13.

^ Ezra Mendelsohn, Painting a People: Maurycy Gottlieb and Jewish Art, University Press of New England, 2002, p. 240. "In his discussion of the American-born Jewish sculptor Jacob Epstein, Hutchins Hapgood writes..." 14. ^ Alyson Pendlebury, Portraying 'the Jew' in First World War Britain, Vallentine Mitchell, 2006, p. 165. "Among the most striking of these is an image of the Anglo-Jewish sculptor Jacob Epstein, a private in the 38th battalion, modelling a human figure out of sand..." 15. ^ Peter Lawson, Anthony Rudolf, Anglo-Jewish Poetry from Isaac Rosenberg to Elaine Feinstein, Vallentine Mitchell, 2006, p. 84. "... with the American-Jewish sculptor Jacob Epstein..." 16. ^ Epstein, Jacob. Let There Be Sculpture, READ Books, 2007, p. 180. ISBN 9781406729818 17.

^ Three sisters with a love, and lust, for life, Camden New Journal, 9 September 2004. Retrieved August 23, 2010 18. ^ London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 40053, p. 10, 29 December 1953. Retrieved 25 August 2010. 19. ^ The New Art Gallery Walsall - Collections and library - Collections 20. ^ Artcyclopedia. Jacob Epstein Online 21. ^ Berthoud, Roger, ‘’The Life of Henry Moore’’, A William Abrahams Book, E.P. Dutton, New York 1987 22. ^ Read, Herbert, ‘’Henry Moore: A study of his life and work’’ Frederick A. Praeger, Publishers, New York, 1966 23. ^ Hammacher, A.M., ‘’The Sculpture of Barbara Hepworth’’, Harry H.

Abrams, Inc., New York 1968 Bibliography Below is a brief overview of key texts by or relating to Epstein: * Buckle, Richard, Jacob Epstein : sculptor , (London: Faber 1963) * Cork, Richard, Jacob Epstein, (London: Tate Gallery Publishing, 1999) * Cronshaw, Jonathan, The Sideshow and the Problems of History: Jacob Epstein's Adam (1939). (University of Leeds, 2005) * Epstein, Jacob, The sculptor speaks : Jacob Epstein to Arnold L. Haskell, a series of conversations on art, (London : W.

Heinemann, 1931.) * Epstein, Jacob, Let there be sculpture : an autobiography, (London: Michael Joseph, 1940) * Friedman, Terry, 'The Hyde Park atrocity' : Epstein's Rima : creation and controversy (Leeds: Henry Moore Centre for the Study of Sculpture, 1988) * Gardner, Stephen, Jacob Epstein: Artist Against the Establishment, (London: Joseph, 1992) * Hapgood, Hutchins, The spirit of the ghetto : studies of the Jewish quarter of New York; with drawings from life by Jacob Epstein, (New York ; London : Funk and Wagnalls, 1909) * Silber, Evelyn, et al. Jacob Epstein : sculpture and drawings, (Leeds : Leeds City Art Galleries ; London : Whitechapel Art Gallery, 1987) * Turner, Colin, A Caricature of a Sculptor.

Jacob Epstein and the British Press: a critical analysis of old history and new evidence, (PhD Thesis, Loughborough University, 2009) * Carving mountains : modern stone sculptures in England 1907-37 : Frank Dobson, Jacob Epstein, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Eric Gill, Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Ben Nicholson, John Skeaping. (Cambridge: Kettles Yard, 1998)

Question: The best known works of which sculptor who aroused hostility over the depiction of sexuality, are 18 large nude sculptures in 1908 for the British Medical Association building on The Strand, the tomb of Oscar Wilde in Pere Lachaise cemetery, Paris, "Rush of Green" in Hyde Park, London, and "St Michael's Victory over the Devil" in Coventry Cathedral?
Answer: Jacob Epstein