Category: Paintings

Description: This painting of sunflowers takes an expressionist approach in its depiction of them. The colors are bright, bordering on surreal with bright reds into yellows on a background that is primarily green.

Notes: Famous expressionist figurative sculptor Jacob Epstein was born of Russian and Polish parents in the United States on New York City's Lower East Side in 1880, but became an English citizen in 1907 after moving to London in 1905. Epstein married Kathleen Garman in the 1920s. He was knighted in 1954. Epstein exhibited in the epoch-making Armory Show in 1913 in New York City. His fifteen-inch-high, smoothly-modeled bronze bust of Euphemia Lamb with sadly downcast eyenow in the collection of The Tate Gallery, London, England--was loaned to the Armory Show by the important collector John Quinn. Epstein's piece was exhibited in Gallery A, devoted to American Sculpture and Decorative Art, with works by Andrew Dasburg, Chester Beach, Gaston Lachaise, Grace Mott Johnson, Mahonri Young and others. Epstein sketched New York City as a teenager before studying, around 1900-1902, at the Art Students League there, at first during the day then at night, when he found employment in a foundry. From 1902-1904, he studied in Paris, France at the Academie Julian and Ecole des Beaux-Arts with Rodin. He became friends with artists including Modigliani, Picasso and Brancusi while working in Paris in 1911-1912. In 1913, he was a founding member of the London Group of artists. Epstein's search for forms revelatory of life--brilliantly original, non-conforming and blatantly expressive, sometimes with obvious sexuality made his figure and portrait sculpture often controversial. His eighteen large figures on the British Medical Association Building, 19071908, were emasculated before being removed in 1937 with the excuse that they were sexually offensive and structurally dangerous. Responsive to the infinite variety of facial types and racial characteristics, Epstein would see interesting people on the street and ask them to pose for him. He also sculpted portraits of a number of world figures in politics, science and the arts including Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Nehru, Joseph Conrad, George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde and the Duke of Marlborough.

Dimensions: "H37'' W31'' D0.25''

Weight: 10 (approx)"

"Maker/Artist: Jacob Epstein, 1880-1959

Size of Artwork: 30.0"" x 24.0"""

Medium: Oil on Canvas

Circa: 20th century

Not lined, no craquelure and minor scattered in-paint.