Sir Jacob Epstein
Jacob Epstein was an American-British avant-garde sculptor. He studied art in New York as a teenager, sketching the city, and joined the Art Students League of New York in 1900. He worked in a bronze foundry by day, studying drawing and sculptural modelling at night. Epstein studied at the Académie Julian and the École des Beaux-Arts having moved to Paris in 1902. He moved to London in 1905 and became a British subject in 1911. www.whytes.ie His works caused scandal and contraversy as it diverged from Classical academic sculpture integrating Indian, West African, and the Pacific Islands influences and often emphasising sexuality. For example one of Epstein's early commissions is Oscar Wilde's tomb in Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, "which was condemned as indecent. He produced busts of Winston Churchill and Albert Einstein among other notable people. His sculptures can be found across Britain as well as in the US and in France. His works are held in numerous public collections. www.whytes.ie