Art: The Bank of Triumph

At 72, Jacob Epstein, one of the greatest living sculptors, is a bullet of a man with an independent eye and a longstanding reputation as one of the bad boys of art. “The man in the street is a fool,” he once declared. And the public has usually returned the insult; shocked art lovers once set on Epstein’s early Rima, a lumpish, bas-relief nude, and painted it green. But in recent years, both Sculptor Epstein and his critics have mellowed a bit. Last week, after a look at a Tate Gallery show spanning his life’s work, London was ready to accept Epstein for the intense and skillful artist he is.

Said London’s Daily Herald: “Epstein at long last stands officially justified. His life battle has finally been won.” Said the Daily Mail: “Epstein . . . reaches today the solid bank of final triumph.”

A few of Epstein’s old shockers were in the Tate exhibit, e.g., his 1931 Genesis, showing a heavy-featured woman clutching her pregnant, outthrust belly. “Repellent as ever,” observed the Times. But no one was much shocked this time, though the public still preferred his powerfully modeled portrait heads. The famous ones—Albert Einstein with his lofty brow and fiercely energetic hair; Nehru, smoldering with deep-eyed intensity; Haile Selassie, imperious in thin-drawn pride; Somerset Maugham, his expression twisted and wry—had the impact of enormously effective sketches, superbly drawn.

Solider and deeper were Epstein’s statues of women, usually half-figures, in which the sculptor uses the set of shoulders, the modeling of collarbone and breasts to suggest personality. There was a beautiful, grave head of his wife, Margaret, a hollow-eyed, haunted Louise, a brazen, thick-lipped Isabel. His most recent was Elizabeth, and it showed Epstein at his peak: a silver head of a young woman with the air of one of Botticelli’s beauties. “It is odd,” mused the News Chronicle, “that the sculptor has suffered the odium of being called a modern. He is so clearly an ancient.”

Watching the respectful crowd at the most important show of his life, Sculptor Epstein said proudly: “It’s going to be a success.” Then he relaxed a bit. Someone asked him to stand by a piece he particularly liked. He walked over to a serene portrait called Marcella he had done two years ago and said: “It’s the quietest and most peaceful thing in the place.”