Ben Uri Pre-Eminent Collection

Bust of Jacob Kramer

Artist information

Name Jacob Epstein (1880-1959)

Born New York, USA

Died London, England

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Sculptor Jacob Epstein was born into a relatively prosperous family of Russian/Polish-Jewish immigrants in New York City, USA on 10 November 1880, but as a teenager rejected the Orthodoxy of his upbringing. From 1893–98 he attended classes at the Art Students' League and was inspired by the multicultural communities around him. After spending the winter of 1899–1900 cutting ice in New Jersey, he turned to sculpture, working in a bronze foundry (1901–2). On the proceeds of his first professional commission to illustrate Hutchins Hapgood’s The Spirit of the Ghetto (1902), he sailed to Europe. In Paris he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts (1902–3) and the Académie Julian (1903–4), sharing the appreciation of artists including Picasso and Modigliani, for Indian and West African art traditions.

Epstein moved to London in 1905 and in 1907 he received his first major British commission, creating 18 nude sculptures for the facade of the British Medical Association Building (now Zimbabwe House) on the Strand. This commission, like many of Epstein’s other early works, was highly controversial and criticised as indecent. Epstein’s second public commission to carve Oscar Wilde’s tomb for Père Lachaise cemetery, Paris (completed in 1912), directly inspired by Assyrian sculpture in the British Museum, abandoned the conventional figure and proved equally controversial. A champion of direct carving, he was also associated with the short-lived Vorticist group, co-curated the so-called 'Jewish Section' at the Whitechapel Art Gallery's 'Review of Modern Movements', with David Bomberg in 1914, and was a co-founder of the London Group. During the First World War, Epstein was conscripted into the Jewish 38th battalion of the Royal Fusiliers in 1917 but was discharged, without seeing active service following a breakdown in 1918.

Epstein's work often challenged prevailing notions of sexuality and beauty and favoured the non-European model. He had solo shows at the Leicester Galleries in 1917, 1920, 1924, 1939 and 1950, a retrospective at Tate in 1952. His public commissions continued to attract controversy including the carved relief Rima (1924–5, Hyde Park), a memorial to the naturalist and author W. H. Hudson, and the monumental figure groups, Night and Day (1928–9), for Charles Holden's London Underground headquarters, and later monumental carvings including Genesis (1930), Ecce Homo (1934–35), and his autobiographical Jacob and the Angel (1940-41, Tate). However, his portrait heads, usually cast in bronze, were always in demand. Epstein also painted in watercolour and gouache, and his scenes of Epping Forest were frequently exhibited in Leicester Galleries, London. He exhibited in group shows at Ben Uri Gallery from 1934 onwards, and was Patron of the Ben Uri art Society in 1936–37. During the Second World War was commissioned by the War Artists’ Advisory Committee to execute six portrait busts including one of Winston Churchill. Epstein was knighted in 1954.

Epstein completed his large bronze Bowater House group for Edinburgh Gate, Knightsbridge (1958–9) on the day that he died in London, England on 21 August 1959; he was buried in Putney Vale cemetery. A posthumous exhibition of bronzes was held at Ben Uri Gallery in November 1959. In 1980, his centenerary year, restropsectives were held at Ben Uri Gallery, Birmingham Museum & Gallery and Tate. More than 300 of his works are in UK public collections including the Ben Uri Collection, the National Portrait Gallery, Tate and the V&A.

Object Details

Date 1921

Object type sculpture

Medium bronze

Materials and techniques bronze (medium) sculpture (technique)

Dimensions 65.5 x 53 x 30 cm

Acquisition Acquired at Bonhams in 2003 with the assistance of Art Fund, V&A Purchase Grant Fund, Pauline and Daniel Auerbach, Sir Michael and Lady Heller, and anonymous donors

Accession number 2003-1

Display status not on display

After his arrival in England, Epstein received vital early backing from Jewish patrons, Alfred and Rudolf Kohnstamm, through his friendship with Alfred Wolmark. Between 1912 and 1914 he established important links with other ‘Whitechapel Boys’, particularly David Bomberg and Mark Gertler.

From his first public commission for the British Medical Association’s building in The Strand, Epstein’s career was always mired in controversy, partly because of the uninhibited sexuality of his figures and his lasting interest in the non-Western (and often mixed-race) model. However, his portraiture was always highly prized. Epstein’s head of Leeds-born painter Jacob Kramer (there are also casts at the Tate and Leeds City Art Gallery) captures his sitter’s famous nervous energy and restlessness. Epstein wrote to Kramer to encourage him to come to London to sit for the portrait after November 1920. He later recalled that Kramer ‘was a model who seemed to be on fire. He was extraordinarily nervous. Energy seemed to leap into his hair as he sat, and sometimes he would be shaken by queer trembling like ague. I would try to calm him so as to get on with the work’. Epstein scholar Evelyn Silber has cited the work as ‘the portrait of one outstanding Jewish contributor to British modernism by another [which] sees both close to the peak of their creative energies’.

Keywords

artist | man | portrait | statue

Selected exhibition history

1980
Epstein Centenary 1980: Bronzes, Drawings and Watercolours
Ben Uri Art Gallery


1983
The Immigrant Generation: Jewish Artists in Britain, 1900-45
Jewish Museum New York


2003
William Roberts & Jacob Kramer: The Tortoise and the Hare
Ben Uri Gallery - The London Jewish Museum of Art


2006
Recent Acquisitions 2001-2006
Ben Uri Gallery - The London Jewish Museum of Art


2009
Homeless & Hidden 1: World Class Collection Homeless & Hidden
Ben Uri Gallery


2010
Apocalypse: unveiling a lost masterpiece by Marc Chagall and 50 selected masterworks from the Ben Uri Collection
Osborne Samuel


2013
Selected Highlights from over 200 works acquired during 2003-2013
Ben Uri Art Gallery


2015
Out of Chaos – Ben Uri: 100 Years in London
Somerset House


2016
Out of Chaos: Touring exhibition
Laing Art Gallery


2018
Acquisitions and Long-Term Loan Highlights Since 2001
Ben Uri Gallery


2019
Migrations: masterworks from the Ben Uri Collection
Gloucester Museum


2021
Becoming Gustav Metzger: Uncovering the Early Years, 1945-59
Ben Uri Gallery & Museum


2023
Art, Identity, Migration - Ben Uri at the London Art Fair
Business Design Centre


Literature

Nicola Baird, ed., Becoming Gustav Metzger: Uncovering the Early Years 1945-59 (London: Ben Uri Research Unit, 2021) p. 101; Rachel Dickson and Sarah MacDougall, eds., 'Out of Chaos: Ben Uri; 100 Years in London' (London: Ben Uri Gallery, 2015) pp. 60-61; Apocalypse: Unveiling a lost masterpiece by Marc Chagall (London: Ben Uri Gallery, 2010); David Glasser, intro., 'Recent Acquisitions 2001-2006' (London: Ben Uri Gallery, 2006) p. 9 (illus. included).

Bust of Jacob Kramer by Jacob Epstein

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Bust of Jacob Kramer by Jacob Epstein

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