Jacob Epstein 1880-1959

Auction notes: Literature: Richard Buckle, Jacob Epstein, Sculptor, Faber & Faber, London, 1963, p. 209 (ill.b&w.p.208 & 209) Evelyn Silber, The Sculpture of Epstein, Phaidon Press, London, 1986, p. 173, cat. no. 232 (ill.b&w.pl.25). The model for this bust was a young art student named Isobel Nicholas and Epstein produced two portraits of her in 1932. She went on to become a painter and designed two ballets. She married three times, first to the political journalist Sefton Delmer and then to the composers Constant Lambert and Alan Rawsthorne (respectively). This is second portrait of the sitter, definitely the more exotic and flamboyant of the two. Richard Buckle described the work as: 'a triumph....The sculptor's mastery shows itself in the way that, observing narrowly every minute graduation of plane and outline, he knows by instinct or experience just where to exaggerate the curl of a lip, the length of a neck, the elegance of a waist or wrist, the outward jut of the breast... a picture of savage sophistication'. (Richard Buckle, Jacob Epstein, Sculptor, Faber and Faber Ltd., London, 1963, p. 209)

Provenance

Private collection UK

Literature

Richard Buckle, Jacob Epstein, Sculptor, Faber & Faber, London, 1963, p.209 (ill.b&w.p.208 & 209)
Evelyn Silber, The Sculpture of Epstein, Phaidon Press, London, 1986, p.173, cat.no.232 (ill.b&w.pl.25)

Provenance

Leicester Galleries, London

Wilfrid A. Evill, 1935

Honor Frost, 1963

Exhibitions

Royal Albert Hall, London, 3rd Allied Artists' Association Exhibition, 1910, no. 1199 (as The Dreamer, original plaster version)

Fine Art Society, London, 1911 (another cast)

The Leicester Galleries, London, Fifty Years of Bronzes and Drawing by Sir Jacob Epstein, 1960, cat no. 7 (as The Dreamer) 

The Home of Wilfrid A. Evill, Contemporary Art Society, London, Pictures, Drawings Watercolours & Sculpture, 1961, no. 20 (as Dawn)

Waverley Maket, Edinburgh, Epstein Memorial Exhibition, 1961

Brighton Art Gallery, Brighton, The Wilfrid Evill Memorial Exhibition, 1965, no. 31a

Leeds City Art Galleries, Leeds, Jacob Epstein: Sculpture & Drawings, 1987, no. 18, p. 117 illus. (another cast), p. 120, touring to Whitechapel Art Gallery, London

Literature

Arnold Haskell, The Sculptor Speaks, Jacob Epstein to Arnold Haskell, 1931, p. 167

Robert Black, The Art of Jacob Epstein, 1942, no. 16, p. 228

Jacob Epstein, Let There Be Sculpture, 1940, p. 56

Jacob Epstein, Epstein: An Autobiography, 1955, p. 42

Richard Buckle, Jacob Epstein Sculptor, 1963, p. 424, illus. pls. 83, 86, pp. 58-59 (another cast)

Evelyn Silber, The Sculpture of Epstein, 1986, no. 36, p. 129, illus. (another cast)