Art: Adam’s Airplanes

For a generation Manhattan-born Sculptor Jacob Epstein has loved living in London and shocking the British. Last summer he shocked them again with Adam, a seven-foot ape man, chiseled out of a three-ton chunk of pink alabaster while Jacob Epstein listened to Ludwig van Beethoven for inspiration. Critics called it “a biologist’s nightmare,” but an Australian gold miner bought it for $35,000. As a side show at Blackpool on the Irish Sea, Adam grossed $250,000 from a million vacation gawkers.

War-pressed Britain can use statues as well as men. Detailed for active service in the U. S., Adam last week was freighter-bound for Manhattan. The British Government will use the proceeds of his coast-to-coast tour to buy U. S. airplanes.