JACOB EPSTEIN (1880-1959), British
ABSALOMS PILLAR II Samuel, 18: XVII
Pencil and watercolour 23 x 171 ins
Signed Epstein
Purchased 1950
These two drawings, illustrations from the Old Testament, are part of a series made by Epstein in 1930.
Absaloms Pillar was purchased by the Committee in 1957, and the Vision of Ezekiel is part of the generous loan
by Mr K. A. Webster, of seven of Epstein's drawings. Four of Mr Webster's collection are from the Old Testament series and
three from Epstein's earliest period in the New York East Side.
Epstein, an artist of incredible energy, worked on a number of sets of drawings, among them illustrations
from Baudelaire's Fleurs du Mal and Whitman's Calamus. He has written of the Old Testament drawings ' I
became so absorbed in the text and in the countless images evoked by my readings, a whole new world passed in vision
before me.'
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VISION OF EZEKIEL Ezekiel 1: XXVII
Pencil and watercolour 23 x 17 3/8 ins
Signed Epstein
Lent by Mr K. A. Webster.
Most of Epstein's religious works exemplify the real and the rare artistic capacity for making a personal
statement to which a universal significance is added. In these drawings, however, his sympathy with an Absalom deprived of
his tomb, is expressed in terms much more personal than universal. He was an artist who suffered considerably at the hands
of the popular Press and he notes in his autobiography that the exhibition of Old Testament drawings was greeted with the
familiar accusation, of blasphemy.
Jacob Epstein remains a solitary figure in 20th Century English Sculpture and his recent death possibly
brings to an end a sculptural tradition beginning with Rodin.
Since 1948 the Gallery has acquired a num- |
