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139-580: The Epstein Archive is one of the largest collections of archives documenting the personal and professional life of the renowned artist and sculptor, Jacob Epstein . It is housed at The New Art Gallery Walsall in England. The collection of letters, diaries, journals and photographs was preserved due to the actions of the museum's Head of Collections, Jo Digger. Kathleen Garman (later to become Kathleen Epstein , Jacob's second wife) had made her friend Beth Lipkin

278-493: A Jew upon baptism ." From the perspective of racial antisemitism, however, "the assimilated Jew was still a Jew, even after baptism.[...] From the Enlightenment onward, it is no longer possible to draw clear lines of distinction between religious and racial forms of hostility towards Jews[...] Once Jews have been emancipated and secular thinking makes its appearance, without leaving behind the old Christian hostility towards Jews,

417-554: A Semitic language. Though 'antisemitism' could be construed as prejudice against people who speak other Semitic languages, this is not how the term is commonly used. The term may be spelled with or without a hyphen (antisemitism or anti-Semitism). Many scholars and institutions favor the unhyphenated form. Shmuel Almog argued, "If you use the hyphenated form, you consider the words 'Semitism', 'Semite', 'Semitic' as meaningful ... [I]n antisemitic parlance, 'Semites' really stands for Jews, just that." Emil Fackenheim supported

556-571: A ballroom that became Epstein's studio and allowed him to start gathering together his unsold and unfinished works from various sheds and garages around London. He also retained Deerhurst, a cottage and studio at Loughton in Epping Forest . A commission from Charles Holden for two sculptures for the new headquarters building of the London Electric Railway generated further controversy in 1929. Epstein's sculptures Day and Night above

695-465: A block of Hopton Wood stone , the new design for Wilde's tomb and for which Gill designed the inscription. This design was clearly influenced by the massive Assyrian sculptures Epstein knew from the British Museum and featured, in his words "a vast, winged figure ... the conception of poet as messenger" with smaller figures representing Fame, Intellectual Pride and Luxury. In June 1912, Epstein had

834-689: A butterfly-shaped plaque made as a fig-leaf to cover the creature's testicles. Epstein refused to attend the official unveiling, which was performed by Aleister Crowley . Crowley subsequently presented Epstein with the fig-leaf from the tomb one evening at the Café Royal in London. During his time in Paris defending the Wilde tomb, as well as Brancusi, Epstein met and befriended Modigliani and Picasso , each of whom influenced his future work. In May and June 1912, Epstein

973-578: A circle of artists associated with the New English Art Club , NEAC, including Muirhead Bone and Augustus John . He had a wax model shown in a large exhibition of Jewish art at the Whitechapel Art Gallery during 1906 and an oil painting included in the NEAC's December 1906 show. In 1907, Epstein moved his studio to 72 Cheyne Walk where he began working on his first major public commission,

1112-702: A collective manifested in individuals as attitudes, and in culture as myth, ideology, folklore and imagery, and in actions—social or legal discrimination, political mobilization against the Jews, and collective or state violence—which results in and/or is designed to distance, displace, or destroy Jews as Jews." Elaborating on Fein's definition, Dietz Bering of the University of Cologne writes that, to antisemites, "Jews are not only partially but totally bad by nature, that is, their bad traits are incorrigible. Because of this bad nature: (1) Jews have to be seen not as individuals but as

1251-442: A collective. (2) Jews remain essentially alien in the surrounding societies. (3) Jews bring disaster on their 'host societies' or on the whole world, they are doing it secretly, therefore the anti-Semites feel obliged to unmask the conspiratorial, bad Jewish character." For Swiss historian Sonja Weinberg , as distinct from economic and religious anti-Judaism , antisemitism in its specifically modern form shows conceptual innovation,

1390-413: A farm. The correspondence would continue, with him telling Moore of his interest in sculpture, something that he would become best known for. The archives also reflect the turbulent and tragic aspects of his family and affairs; one tragic figure is that of his illegitimate son Theodore Garman who had started to make a name for himself as a prominent artist. A newspaper clipping in the archive taken from

1529-651: A four-ton block of alabaster, streaked with veins of pink and brown. Epstein imagined the fallen angel Lucifer as a tall, winged, androgynous figure with male genitals and a female face, that of the Kashmiri model Sunita Devi , all cast in a golden patinated bronze. The front of the Leicester Galleries had to be removed to get the statue inside for its first public showing in October 1945. Despite positive reviews, Lucifer remained unsold until 1946 when A. W. Lawrence ,

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1668-409: A large block of alabaster in his Hyde Park Gate studio. Inspired by Bach's Mass in B minor , he carved Consummatum Est , a horizontal figure of the crucified Christ with the stigmata wounds on his hands and feet visible. Epstein began, in 1938, to sculpt Adam , a seven foot high figure carved from a three-ton block of alabaster. The directors of the Leicester Galleries were reluctant to include

1807-467: A large bronze, The Risen Christ , which he had abandoned when called up. When exhibited at the Leicester Galleries in February 1920, the seven-foot figure of a gaunt, accusing Christ figure provoked a torrent of abuse towards Epstein, some of which was racist in nature. The controversy brought over a thousand people a day through the turnstiles of the Leicester Galleries for the exhibition. The Risen Christ

1946-425: A major beneficiary in her will. They had shared a house together up until her death and the documents were all left behind. In the late 1990s, Beth Lipkin was admitted into a nursing home. The letters, diaries and photographs were then at risk of being lost. However, as the house was being cleared, Jo Digger realised the importance of these documents and had them placed into suitcases and removed for storage. Funding

2085-604: A misnomer. The word Judeophobia first appeared in his pamphlet " Auto-Emancipation ", published anonymously in German in September 1882, where it was described as an irrational fear or hatred of Jews. According to Pinsker, this irrational fear was an inherited predisposition. Judeophobia is a form of demonopathy, with the distinction that the Jewish ghost has become known to the whole race of mankind, not merely to certain races... Judeophobia

2224-507: A mixture of the humane, the humorous and the profound. This was a combination which delighted me. He resembled the ageing Rembrandt." Throughout 1934 Epstein struggled with carving a huge block of marble that proved so tough it regularly broke his tools until he had a new set of instruments made for the work. Behold the Man (Ecce Homo) depicted a squat Christ with a huge head that, in Epstein's words,

2363-461: A new design carved directly in stone. The decision to carve directly in stone , then a new and radical departure for contemporary sculptors, may reflect the influence of Epstein's then friend and collaborator Eric Gill . Throughout the second half of 1910, Epstein and Gill met on an almost daily basis, but eventually they fell out. Earlier that year they had held long discussions with other artists, including Augustus John and Ambrose McEvoy , about

2502-414: A non-religious perspective ) in which he used the word Semitismus interchangeably with the word Judentum to denote both "Jewry" (the Jews as a collective) and "Jewishness" (the quality of being Jewish, or the Jewish spirit). He accused the Jews of a worldwide conspiracy against non-Jews, called for resistance against "this foreign power", and claimed that "there will be absolutely no public office, even

2641-610: A notable portrait bust of Admiral Lord Fisher . During 1916, the Epsteins left Pett Level and moved to Guildford Street in the Bloomsbury area of central London. As Epstein had become a naturalized British subject in December 1910 he was eligible for conscription into the British armed forces. After lobbying by Margaret Epstein, John Quinn and others, a three-month exemption from conscription

2780-598: A number of businesses and tenements, and Jacob was the third of their eight surviving children. As a child Epstein suffered from pleurisy and he left school aged thirteen. Between 1893 and 1898 he attended classes at the Art Students League of New York . In 1898 he organised an exhibition at the Hebrew Institute for a group of local Jewish artists and in 1899 opted to stay at Hester Street when his family moved to Madison Avenue , supporting himself by working as

2919-481: A petition that persuaded the church authorities to overrule the rector and refuse the gift. It was not until 1969, that Ecce Homo , donated by Epstein's widow Kathleen Garman , was finally installed in the ruins of Coventry Cathedral . By 1926, the British Medical Association had vacated their Strand headquarters and the building was sold to the government of New Zealand which, in 1928, commissioned

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3058-619: A petition to have the memorial removed. The Daily Mail ran the headline "Take this horror out of the Park" while the Morning Post described Rima as "hideous, unnatural, unEnglish" and a question was asked in the House of Commons about "this specimen of Bolshevik art". The abuse aimed at Rima and Epstein lasted for years. The memorial was vandalised with paint in November 1925 and, at different times, during

3197-548: A portrait bust of Joseph Conrad . Epstein, wrote Conrad, "has produced a wonderful piece of work of a somewhat monumental dignity, and yet—everybody agrees—the likeness is striking." The Polish government refused to accept the work, completed a few months before Conrad died, and it was eventually, in 1960, acquired by the National Portrait Gallery in London. In 1927 Epstein agreed to hold an exhibition in New York at

3336-511: A portrait of his two-year-old son, Romilly. This 1907 bronze Romilly John became the first of a series of such portraits of the child. In 1909, Epstein carved a stone version that he retained for the rest of his life. The 1908 controversy over the Strand statues left Epstein depressed and short of money. For the rest of 1908 he worked on portraits and small pieces, notably busts of Euphemia Lamb and his first portrait bust of Mary McEvoy . Near

3475-455: A positive review for The Spectator , stating that the scale of the work was more suitable for a large church rather than an art gallery. Epstein never sold the work and it remained in his studio throughout his life. In 1958 he was approached by the rector of Selby Abbey in Yorkshire, who asked if Epstein would leave Ecce Homo to the abbey in his will. He agreed but local church members raised

3614-438: A refuge. Most Zionists do not believe that antisemitism can be combatted with education or other means. The contextual approach treats antisemitism as a type of racism and focuses on the historical context in which hatred of Jews emerges. Some contextualists restrict the use of "antisemitism" to refer exclusively to the era of modern racism, treating anti-Judaism as a separate phenomenon. Historian David Engel has challenged

3753-481: A resort to "science" to defend itself, new functional forms, and organisational differences. It was anti-liberal, racialist and nationalist. It promoted the myth that Jews conspired to 'judaise' the world ; it served to consolidate social identity; it channeled dissatisfactions among victims of the capitalist system; and it was used as a conservative cultural code to fight emancipation and liberalism. In 2003, Israeli politician Natan Sharansky developed what he called

3892-437: A series of statues for the new British Medical Association building in London. Throughout 1907 and 1908, Epstein created eighteen large sculptures for the second-floor façade of Charles Holden 's new building for the British Medical Association, BMA, on The Strand (now Zimbabwe House ) in central London. Epstein created models of each figure in his studio and these were then cast in plaster. The plaster models were taken to

4031-410: A standard different from that applied to others, and they are accused of "cosmic evil". Thus, "it is perfectly possible to hate and even to persecute Jews without necessarily being anti-Semitic" unless this hatred or persecution displays one of the two features specific to antisemitism. There have been a number of efforts by international and governmental bodies to define antisemitism formally. In 2005,

4170-522: A state of Israel is a racist endeavor, can be a manifestation of antisemitism—as can applying double standards by requiring of Israel a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation, or holding Jews collectively responsible for the actions of the State of Israel. The EUMC working definition was adopted by the European Parliament Working Group on Antisemitism in 2010, by

4309-486: A structural survey of Epstein's 1908 statues. This survey found extensive signs of erosion, weathering and other damage among them. No further action was taken at that time but in 1935 the building was sold to the government of Southern Rhodesia and the new owners soon announced their intention to remove Epstein's statues from the building. A vigorous campaign was again launched to preserve the figures. The leaders of nine of Britain's leading art organisations, but notably not

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4448-450: A tarpaulin. They demanded that Epstein remove the offending parts or cover them up. He refused and on several occasions visited the cemetery and, with the help of friends including Nina Hamnett and Brancusi , removed the tarpaulin only for the cemetery authorities to replace it later. This standoff, with Epstein travelling between London and Paris on a frequent basis, continued until August 1914 when Robbie Ross, against Epstein's wishes, had

4587-577: A tenement inspector and, briefly, as a physical education instructor. He also began selling his drawings and provided illustrations for two articles by the journalist Hutchins Hapgood . Epstein spent the winter of 1899 working as an ice-cutter with his friend Bernard Gussrow at Greenwood Lake in New Jersey. In 1900, the Hester Street tenement Epstein was living in burnt down and, as well as losing all his sketches and drawings, he became homeless. With

4726-423: Is a psychic disorder. As a psychic disorder, it is hereditary, and as a disease transmitted for two thousand years it is incurable... Thus have Judaism and Jew-hatred passed through history for centuries as inseparable companions... Having analyzed Judeophobia as a hereditary form of demonopathy, peculiar to the human race, and represented Jew-hatred as based upon an inherited aberration of the human mind, we must draw

4865-507: Is concerned he took them first.... We have lost a great sculptor and a great man." Epstein was born at 102 Hester Street on the Lower East Side of New York City. His parents were Max Epstein, formerly Jarogenski or Jarudzinski, and Mary Epstein, née Solomon, both of whom were Orthodox Jews and whose families had emigrated from Augustów in Poland. The family was middle-class, owning

5004-459: Is driven by the belief that Jews constitute a distinct race with inherent traits or characteristics that are repulsive or inferior to the preferred traits or characteristics within that person's society. In the latter case, known as religious antisemitism , a person's hostility is driven by their religion's perception of Jews and Judaism, typically encompassing doctrines of supersession that expect or demand Jews to turn away from Judaism and submit to

5143-564: Is erroneous; the compound word antisemitismus was first used in print in Germany in 1879 as a " scientific-sounding term " for Judenhass ( lit.   ' Jew-hatred ' ), and it has since been used to refer to anti-Jewish sentiment alone. The word "Semitic" was coined by German orientalist August Ludwig von Schlözer in 1781 to designate the Semitic group of languages — Aramaic , Arabic , Hebrew and others—allegedly spoken by

5282-419: Is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against, Jews . This sentiment is a form of racism , and a person who harbours it is called an antisemite . Primarily, antisemitic tendencies may be motivated by negative sentiment towards Jews as a people or by negative sentiment towards Jews with regard to Judaism . In the former case, usually presented as racial antisemitism , a person's hostility

5421-473: Is not publicly known. There is a picture of Theodore and Epstein looking at one of Theodore's paintings. The archives also hold the birth certificate of Epstein's illegitimate son Theodore, with just a pen stroke through the section 'Father'. Jacob Epstein Sir Jacob Epstein KBE (10 November 1880 – 21 August 1959) was an American and British sculptor who helped pioneer modern sculpture. He

5560-559: The Alliance Anti-semitique Universelle in Bucharest. In the period before World War II , when animosity towards Jews was far more commonplace, it was not uncommon for a person, an organization, or a political party to self-identify as an antisemite or antisemitic. The early Zionist pioneer Leon Pinsker , a professional physician, preferred the clinical-sounding term Judeophobia to antisemitism, which he regarded as

5699-646: The British Museum , all of which were to have a profound influence on his future work. After destroying the contents of his Paris studio, Epstein moved to London in 1905 with Dunlop, whom he married in November 1906. The couple lived at Stanhope Street near Regent's Park before moving to the Stamford Street Studios in Fulham . With a reference from Rodin, Epstein gained access to a number of society figures, notably George Bernard Shaw and Robbie Ross and to

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5838-544: The Daily Mail , dated 23 January 1954, tells of the death of Theodore, who had died from a heart attack during a commotion whilst an ambulance team were trying to escort him to hospital as a result of him having a severe psychiatric episode. Even at the time of Theodore's death, Epstein is mentioned in the article as a fellow artist who had an interest in Theodore's work and not as his father, so even at this time Theodore's parentage

5977-728: The Dreyfus affair , between 1894 and 1906; the Holocaust by Nazi Germany during World War II ; and various Soviet anti-Jewish policies . Historically, most of the world's violent antisemitic events have taken place in Christian Europe . However, since the early 20th century, there has been a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents across the Arab world , largely due to the surge in Arab antisemitic conspiracy theories , which have been cultivated to an extent under

6116-598: The Fundamental Rights Agency ), an agency of the European Union , developed a more detailed working definition , which stated: "Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities." It also adds that "such manifestations could also target

6255-683: The House of Commons , the concession was withdrawn. By September 1917 Epstein was a private in the 38th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers , known as the Jewish Legion , stationed at the Crownhill barracks, Plymouth . Several attempts were made to have Epstein created an official war artist. His release from active service and secondment to the newly formed Imperial War Museum was approved by Field Marshal Haig in December 1917 but promptly withdrawn after

6394-461: The Leicester Galleries in London. Bronze portrait sculpture formed one of Epstein's staple products, and perhaps the best known. These sculptures were often executed with roughly textured surfaces, expressively manipulating small surface planes and facial details. Epstein was Jewish, and negative reviews of his work sometimes took on an antisemitic flavour, though he did not attribute

6533-565: The Louvre to view its collection of non-European sculpture, studied Indian and Far Eastern art in the Musée Guimet and artworks from China in the Musée Cernuschi . Epstein visited Rodin in his studio and met Margaret Dunlop, known as Peggy, (1873-1947) who encouraged him to visit London, which he did in 1904. There he spent some time viewing sculptures from African and Polynesian cultures in

6672-574: The Matter statue and the figure of a new-born baby from Infancy . Several of these pieces were eventually acquired by the National Gallery of Canada and one of the heads was later found at a school in Bulawayo . In the second half of the 1930s alongside his sculpture work, Epstein took on other projects in different media. With the artist Bernard Meninsky , he designed and painted the stage curtain for

6811-534: The Philadelphia Museum of Art had commissioned him to create a large sculpture group, Social Consciousness ; he was one of 250 sculptors who exhibited in the 3rd Sculpture International held there in the summer of 1949. In London, the Tate hosted a large retrospective exhibition of his work in September 1952 with fifty-nine sculptures and twenty drawings. Antisemitism Antisemitism or Jew-hatred

6950-836: The Rhineland massacres in 1096; the Edict of Expulsion in 1290; the European persecution of Jews during the Black Death , between 1348 and 1351; the massacre of Spanish Jews in 1391, the crackdown of the Spanish Inquisition , and the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492; the Cossack massacres in Ukraine , between 1648 and 1657; various anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire , between 1821 and 1906;

7089-819: The United States Department of State in 2017, in the Operational Hate Crime Guidance of the UK College of Policing in 2014 and by the UK's Campaign Against Antisemitism . In 2016, the working definition was adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance . IHRA's Working definition of antisemitism is among the most controversial documents related to opposition to antisemitism, and critics argue that it has been used to censor criticism of Israel. In response to

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7228-531: The United States Department of State stated that "while there is no universally accepted definition, there is a generally clear understanding of what the term encompasses." For the purposes of its 2005 Report on Global Anti-Semitism, the term was considered to mean "hatred toward Jews—individually and as a group—that can be attributed to the Jewish religion and/or ethnicity." In 2005, the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC, now

7367-708: The " Semites " as a race ]." Psychologist Avner Falk similarly writes: "The German word antisemitisch was first used in 1860 by the Austrian Jewish scholar Moritz Steinschneider (1816–1907) in the phrase antisemitische Vorurteile (antisemitic prejudices). Steinschneider used this phrase to characterise the French philosopher Ernest Renan's false ideas about how ' Semitic races ' were inferior to ' Aryan races ' ". Pseudoscientific theories concerning race , civilization, and "progress" had become quite widespread in Europe in

7506-431: The "Anti-Kanzler-Liga" (Anti-Chancellor League). The league was the first German organization committed specifically to combating the alleged threat to Germany and German culture posed by the Jews and their influence and advocating their forced removal from the country. So far as can be ascertained, the word was first widely printed in 1881, when Marr published Zwanglose Antisemitische Hefte , and Wilhelm Scherer used

7645-539: The "average unfavorable criticism" of his work to antisemitism. After Epstein died, Henry Moore wrote a tribute in The Sunday Times which included a recognition of Epstein's central role in the development of modern sculpture in Britain. "He took the brickbats, he took the insults, he faced the howls of derision with which artists since Rembrandt have learned to become familiar. And as far as sculpture in this century

7784-467: The "origins of anti-Semitic prejudices are rooted in different historical periods." König asserts that differences in the chronology of different antisemitic prejudices and the irregular distribution of such prejudices over different segments of the population create "serious difficulties in the definition of the different kinds of anti-Semitism." These difficulties may contribute to the existence of different taxonomies that have been developed to categorize

7923-450: The "three D" test to distinguish antisemitism from criticism of Israel, giving delegitimization , demonization, and double standards as a litmus test for the former. Bernard Lewis , writing in 2006, defined antisemitism as a special case of prejudice, hatred, or persecution directed against people who are in some way different from the rest. According to Lewis, antisemitism is marked by two distinct features: Jews are judged according to

8062-528: The 1930s was defaced with swastikas and fascist slogans. In January 1924 the Leicester Galleries held their third exhibition of Epstein's works. The exhibition attracted few sales but did elicit a critical and damaging review in the New Statesman by Roger Fry and an unsigned and overtly racist article in The New Age . Through Muirhead Bone, Epstein was commissioned by the government of Poland to create

8201-444: The 1930s, Epstein worked on a number of large sculptures on religious subjects of personal significance to himself, while supporting his family with commissions for portrait busts and by selling paintings of flowers and landscapes. In 1929, Epstein carved Genesis , a massive, marble, three-ton figure of a pregnant woman with a swollen belly and a face based on an African mask. When shown as part of Epstein's February 1930 exhibition at

8340-477: The Angel was bought by a businessman, Charles Stafford, who already owned Epstein's Adam, which he had been exhibiting in local fairs and fetes for its shock value. In Blackpool, he installed Jacob and the Angel in an old song booth on the promenade behind an 'Adults Only' sign. Eventually Stafford sold Jacob and the Angel and Adam , plus Consummatum Est which he also owned, to Louis Tussaud . Tussaud returned

8479-465: The Christian foundation on which the modern antisemitic edifice rests and invoke political antisemitism, cultural antisemitism, racism or racial antisemitism, economic antisemitism, and the like." William Nicholls draws a distinction between religious antisemitism and modern antisemitism based on racial or ethnic grounds: "The dividing line was the possibility of effective conversion [...] a Jew ceased to be

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8618-516: The Churchill bust made and it was among his most popular works. Throughout the war, Epstein continued to paint flowers and woodland scenes of Epping Forest and hold commercially successful Christmas exhibitions of those works. He also worked on two large private projects, Jacob and the Angel and Lucifer . First exhibited in February 1942, Jacob and the Angel , based on a Bible story, depicts two figures, one winged, locked in an embrace carved from

8757-474: The Epsteins moved to a secluded bungalow in the village of Pett Level in East Sussex. Using the garden shed there as a studio, over the next three years Epstein produced a number of notable works. At Pett Level, Epstein became aware of the dark green mineral Serpentinite , which he called Flenite, and used it for sculptures, including Flenite Women and Flenite Relief, which showed an infant emerging from

8896-419: The Ferargil Gallery on West 47th Street and spent most of that year preparing fifty works for the show. The exhibition was a success, with several pieces selling including two bought by public collections. During his four months in America, Epstein made three portrait busts, most notably one of the singer Paul Robeson . In early 1928 the Epstein family moved to 18 Hyde Park Gate , a five-storey house with

9035-405: The Fleet Sir Andrew Cunningham , General Sir Alan Cunningham , Air Marshal Sir Charles Portal and Ernest Bevin , Epstein accepted a commission to create busts of John Anderson and Winston Churchill . He completed the bust of Winston Churchill in early 1947. By then, Churchill was living in Hyde Park Gate across the road from Epstein and the two became friendly. Epstein had numerous casts of

9174-436: The Holocaust. Hannah Arendt criticized this approach, writing that it provoked "the uncomfortable question: 'Why the Jews of all people?' ... with the question begging reply: Eternal hostility." Zionist thinkers and antisemites draw different conclusions from what they perceive as the eternal hatred of Jews; according to antisemites, it proves the inferiority of Jews, while for Zionists it means that Jews need their own state as

9313-404: The Jewish race." After 1945 victory of the Allies over Nazi Germany , and particularly after the full extent of the Nazi genocide against the Jews became known, the term antisemitism acquired pejorative connotations. This marked a full circle shift in usage, from an era just decades earlier when "Jew" was used as a pejorative term. Yehuda Bauer wrote in 1984: "There are no anti-Semites in

9452-505: The Jews for an encyclopedia of sins . The Church blamed the Jews for killing Jesus ; Voltaire blamed the Jews for inventing Christianity . In the febrile minds of anti-Semites, Jews were usurers and well-poisoners and spreaders of disease . Jews were the creators of both communism and capitalism ; they were clannish but also cosmopolitan ; cowardly and warmongering; self-righteous moralists and defilers of culture. Ideologues and demagogues of many permutations have understood

9591-635: The Jews to be a singularly malevolent force standing between the world and its perfection. Jeffrey Goldberg , 2015. Louis Harap , writing in the 1980s, separated "economic antisemitism" and merges "political" and "nationalistic" antisemitism into "ideological antisemitism". Harap also adds a category of "social antisemitism". Religious antisemitism , also known as anti-Judaism, is antipathy towards Jews because of their perceived religious beliefs. In theory, antisemitism and attacks against individual Jews would stop if Jews stopped practicing Judaism or changed their public faith, especially by conversion to

9730-472: The Leicester Galleries, the response to Genesis was vicious, not just from the popular press but from more serious journals. Epstein took particular exception to an insulting review by the artist Paul Nash . After a break of almost twenty years, Epstein returned to the sculpture Sun God and began, in 1932, to carve a new relief on the rear side of the block, a hunched male figure with two infant forms across his body, titled Primeval Gods . Epstein spent

9869-422: The Royal Academy, signed a letter supporting the preservation of the statues. That campaign was a success until 1937 when, as some bunting, erected for the coronation of George VI , was being removed from the building, a piece of one figure was knocked off and fell to the pavement below. The London County Council instructed the owners to make the building safe. The owners declared all the projecting features of

10008-411: The Strand sculptures represented Epstein's first thoroughgoing attempt to break away from traditional European iconography in favour of elements derived from classical India sculpture . The female figures in particular incorporated the posture and hand gestures of Buddhist , Jain and Hindu art from the subcontinent. While working on the Strand statues, Epstein was asked by Augustus John to create

10147-458: The Strand where they were copied in stone by a firm of commercial architectural carvers, John Drymond of Westminster Bridge Road. Epstein then made minor adjustments and changes to the stone figures. This process of using models, casts and commercial carvers was the norm for architectural sculpture at the time and was one Epstein soon came to reject. Although the six figures representing aspects of medicine and science attracted little attention,

10286-400: The actions of an individual Jewish person or group; denying the Holocaust or accusing Jews or Israel of exaggerating it; and accusing Jews of dual loyalty or a greater allegiance to Israel than their own country. It also lists ways in which attacking Israel could be antisemitic, and states that denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g. by claiming that the existence of

10425-442: The aegis of European antisemitic conspiracy theories . In recent times, the idea that there is a variation of antisemitism known as " new antisemitism " has emerged on several occasions. According to this view, since Israel is a Jewish state , expressions of anti-Zionist positions could harbour antisemitic sentiments. Natan Sharansky describes the "3D" test to determine the existence of such antisemitism: demonizing Israel,

10564-574: The artist's major patron and collector of his work. After his death in 1924, several of Quinn's Epsteins were acquired by public collections in the United States. By September 1912, after a prolonged dispute with the French customs authorities over the import duty payable, Wilde's tomb was installed in the Père Lachaise Cemetery. The Paris authorities deemed the monument offensive due to the flying creature's testicles and had it covered with

10703-548: The ballet David at the Duke of York's Theatre in central London. The curtain, now lost, was considered a great success. Considerably less appreciated was Epstein's illustrations for an edition of Les Fleurs du mal by Baudelaire . Commissioned to produce twenty drawings, Epstein created sixty illustrations that he considered among his best work in any medium, but when shown at Tooth's Gallery in December 1936, met with near universal disapproval. During 1936, Epstein started carving

10842-585: The bipolarity that is at the heart of the problem of antisemitism". The Associated Press and its accompanying AP Stylebook adopted the unhyphenated spelling in 2021. Style guides for other news organizations such as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal later adopted this spelling as well. It has also been adopted by many Holocaust museums , such as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Yad Vashem . Though

10981-763: The brother of T. E. Lawrence , and the Seven Pillars of Wisdom Trust purchased it with the intention of donating it to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. The Fitzwilliam refused the donation as did both the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Tate but several other museums did show interest and Epstein was pleased when the statue entered the collection of the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery , where it remains. Jacob and

11120-420: The completed tomb displayed in his London studio for public viewing. The work received positive reviews and was highly praised in the British press, including by publications that had been critical of the Strand statues. Following an introduction from Augustus John in 1910, John Quinn , a wealthy American collector and patron to the modernists, visited Epstein's studio to view the Wilde tomb and quickly became

11259-670: The convent began working hard to raise funds for the sculpture to be cast in lead. Unveiled on 14 May 1953 by Rab Butler , the Chancellor of the Exchequer , the Cavendish Square Madonna and Child met with near universal praise. While working on Madonna and Child during 1951 and 1952, Epstein undertook other major projects. In August 1951 he travelled to the United States to view the site in Fairmount Park , Philadelphia where

11398-431: The depiction of sexuality. He often produced controversial works that challenged ideas on what was appropriate subject matter for public artworks. Epstein would often sculpt the images of friends, casual acquaintances, and even people he spotted on the street. He worked even on his dying day. He also painted; many of his watercolours and gouaches were of Epping Forest , where he lived for a time. These were often exhibited at

11537-410: The descendants of Biblical figure Sem , son of Noah . The origin of "antisemitic" terminologies is found in the responses of orientalist Moritz Steinschneider to the views of orientalist Ernest Renan . Historian Alex Bein writes: "The compound anti-Semitism appears to have been used first by Steinschneider, who challenged Renan on account of his 'anti-Semitic prejudices' [i.e., his derogation of

11676-471: The design but the park authorities objected and requested a new design. Epstein's new design focused on the character, Rima , from Hudson's novel Green Mansions and, after submitting numerous treatments of the figure, a final design was approved in February 1924. When Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin unveiled the memorial on 19 May 1925, there were gasps of horror at the sight of the bare-breasted figure Epstein had created. Arthur Conan Doyle organised

11815-440: The double standard of criticizing Israel disproportionately to other countries, and delegitimizing Israel's right to exist . Due to the root word Semite , the term is prone to being invoked as a misnomer by those who incorrectly assert (in an etymological fallacy ) that it refers to racist hatred directed at " Semitic people " in spite of the fact that this grouping is an obsolete historical race concept . Likewise, such usage

11954-519: The downfall of Judaism, a phenomenon that negates everything purely human and noble." This use of Semitismus was followed by a coining of " Antisemitismus " which was used to indicate opposition to the Jews as a people and opposition to the Jewish spirit, which Marr interpreted as infiltrating German culture. The pamphlet became very popular, and in the same year Marr founded the Antisemiten-Liga (League of Antisemites), apparently named to follow

12093-480: The end of 1908, without any prior discussion or advance warning, Robbie Ross announced that Epstein was the chosen sculptor for a new tomb of Oscar Wilde in the Père Lachaise Cemetery , Paris. After a period spent studying Wilde's writings, Epstein designed a monument featuring a large statue of Narcissus . After several months, he changed his mind and destroyed that, almost-complete, monument in favour of

12232-424: The entrances of 55 Broadway were criticised as indecent, ugly and primitive although some critics, notably R. H. Wilenski , regarded them as a major achievement. Starting in October 1928 Epstein carved the two figures in-situ as the upper floors of the building were being built above him. Aware of the potential for controversy, he was not identified, in public at least, as the sculptor until May 1929 when Night

12371-437: The financial canards: Abraham Foxman describes six facets of the financial canards: Gerald Krefetz summarizes the myth as "[Jews] control the banks, the money supply, the economy, and businesses—of the community, of the country, of the world". Krefetz gives, as illustrations, many slurs and proverbs (in several different languages) which suggest that Jews are stingy, or greedy, or miserly, or aggressive bargainers. During

12510-521: The formation of a religious brotherhood. They also planned the construction on the Sussex Downs of a colossal monument to art, which Gill referred to "as a sort of twentieth-century Stonehenge." During the time they worked together, both Epstein and Gill produced significant works on similar themes, notably Epstein's Sun God and Gill's Cocky Kid and they both carved portrait heads of Romilly John. Epstein's third Romilly John head, entitled Rom ,

12649-509: The forms of antisemitism. The forms identified are substantially the same; it is primarily the number of forms and their definitions that differ. Bernard Lazare , writing in the 1890s, identified three forms of antisemitism: Christian antisemitism , economic antisemitism, and ethnologic antisemitism. William Brustein names four categories: religious, racial, economic, and political. The Roman Catholic historian Edward Flannery distinguished four varieties of antisemitism: Europe has blamed

12788-590: The funeral procession of Emile Zola and witnessed some of the anti-semitic abuse directed at the passing cortège. Epstein studied at the École des Beaux-Arts from October 1902 until March 1903 and then, from April 1903 to 1904, at the Académie Julian where he was taught by Jean-Paul Laurens . He shared a studio in Montparnasse with Bernard Gussrow and throughout 1904 and 1905 appears to have studied independently in various Paris museums. He regularly visited

12927-420: The general definition of antisemitism is hostility or prejudice against Jews, and, according to Olaf Blaschke , has become an "umbrella term for negative stereotypes about Jews", a number of authorities have developed more formal definitions. Writing in 1987, Holocaust scholar and City University of New York professor Helen Fein defined it as "a persisting latent structure of hostile beliefs towards Jews as

13066-740: The help of the local settlement movement he took a job as a farmhand in Southboro, Massachusetts . Returning to Manhattan in June 1901 he worked in a bronze foundry while taking classes for sculptor's assistants at the Art Students League of New York. Epstein's first major commission was to illustrate Hutchins Hapgood's 1902 book The Spirit of the Ghetto . Epstein used the money from the commission to leave New York City for Paris in September 1902. On his second full day in Paris, during October 1902, Epstein saw

13205-591: The highest one, which the Jews will not have usurped". This followed his 1862 book Die Judenspiegel ( A Mirror to the Jews ) in which he argued that "Judaism must cease to exist if humanity is to commence", demanding both that Judaism be dissolved as a "religious-denominational sect" but also subject to criticism "as a race, a civil and social entity". In the introductions to the first through fourth editions of Der Judenspiegel, Marr denied that he intended to preach Jew-hatred, but instead to help "the Jews reach their full human potential" which could happen only "through

13344-459: The important conclusion, that we must give up contending against these hostile impulses, just as we give up contending against every other inherited predisposition. In the aftermath of the Kristallnacht pogrom in 1938, German propaganda minister Goebbels announced: "The German people is anti-Semitic. It has no desire to have its rights restricted or to be provoked in the future by parasites of

13483-653: The late 19th century. For example, Karl Lueger , the popular mayor of fin de siècle Vienna , skillfully exploited antisemitism as a way of channeling public discontent to his political advantage. In its 1910 obituary of Lueger, The New York Times notes that Lueger was "Chairman of the Christian Social Union of the Parliament and of the Anti-Semitic Union of the Diet of Lower Austria. In 1895, A. C. Cuza organized

13622-457: The more subtle end, it consists of expressions of hatred or discrimination against individual Jews and may or may not be accompanied by violence. On the most extreme end, it consists of pogroms or genocide , which may or may not be state-sponsored. Although the term "antisemitism" did not come into common usage until the 19th century, it is also applied to previous and later anti-Jewish incidents. Notable instances of antisemitic persecution include

13761-649: The most widely read Catholic writers in France during the Dreyfus Affair, likewise combined religious and racial antisemitism. Drumont founded the Antisemitic League of France . The underlying premise of economic antisemitism is that Jews perform harmful economic activities or that economic activities become harmful when they are performed by Jews. Linking Jews and money underpins the most damaging and lasting antisemitic canards . Antisemites claim that Jews control

13900-456: The naked giant figure with his oversized genitals and muscles in Epstein's June 1939 exhibition but feared he would withdraw all his work from the gallery if they didn't accept it. Adam was of great personal significance to Epstein who had, throughout the first half of 1939, worked day and night on the figure. Alongside the usual outrage that greeted much of Epstein's work, Oswald Mosley 's fascist group threatened to attack it. A photograph of

14039-613: The new term antisemitism becomes almost unavoidable, even before explicitly racist doctrines appear." Some Christians such as the Catholic priest Ernest Jouin , who published the first French translation of the Protocols , combined religious and racial antisemitism, as in his statement that "From the triple viewpoint of race, of nationality, and of religion, the Jew has become the enemy of humanity." The virulent antisemitism of Édouard Drumont , one of

14178-576: The nuns, had him produce a maquette . When the convent rejected Epstein's design on cost grounds, he and Osman, with help from Kenneth Clark and the Arts Council , agreed to cover the cost themselves. The convent agreed to Epstein's design provided he would listen to any suggestions they made. After Epstein accepted their concerns about the face of the Madonna and changed the head from one based on Kathleen Garman to one modelled on her friend Marcella Bazrtti,

14317-590: The official or right religion. However, in some cases, discrimination continues after conversion, as in the case of Marranos (Christianized Jews in Spain and Portugal) in the late 15th century and 16th century, who were suspected of secretly practising Judaism or Jewish customs. Although the origins of antisemitism are rooted in the Judeo-Christian conflict, other forms of antisemitism have developed in modern times. Frederick Schweitzer asserts that "most scholars ignore

14456-475: The outset the term "anti-Semitism" bore special racial connotations and meant specifically prejudice against Jews . The term has been described as confusing, for in modern usage 'Semitic' designates a language group, not a race. In this sense, the term is a misnomer, since there are many speakers of Semitic languages (e.g., Arabs , Ethiopians , and Arameans ) who are not the objects of antisemitic prejudices, while there are many Jews who do not speak Hebrew ,

14595-615: The perceived lack of clarity in the IHRA definition, two new definitions of antisemitism were published in 2021, the Nexus Document in February 2021 and the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism in March 2021. In 1879, Wilhelm Marr founded the Antisemiten-Liga (Anti-Semitic League). Identification with antisemitism and as an antisemite was politically advantageous in Europe during

14734-518: The popular press and the art journals, were almost universally hostile and insulting to Epstein. In London, Epstein rented a room above a bookshop in Devonshire Street and used a garage in the adjacent mews to began work on Rock Drill , which was too large for the Pett Level shed. By the summer of 1914 he was close to completing the work but could not afford to have it cast in steel and made

14873-591: The project to define antisemitism, arguing that it essentializes Jewish history as one of persecution and discrimination. Engel argues that the term "antisemitism" is not useful in historical analysis because it implies that there are links between anti-Jewish prejudices expressed in different contexts, without evidence of such a connection. Antisemitism manifests itself in a variety of ways. René König mentions social antisemitism, economic antisemitism, religious antisemitism, and political antisemitism as examples. König points out that these different forms demonstrate that

15012-414: The religion presenting itself as Judaism's successor faith—this is a common theme within the other Abrahamic religions . The development of racial and religious antisemitism has historically been encouraged by the concept of anti-Judaism , which is distinct from antisemitism itself. There are various ways in which antisemitism is manifested, ranging in the level of severity of Jewish persecution . On

15151-778: The sculptor George Frampton raised objections. The scheduled departure of his regiment to the Middle East precipitated a breakdown in Epstein. After he was found wandering on Dartmoor , and spent a period in hospital, he was discharged from the army in July 1918 without having left England. After the war ended, Muirhead Bone purchased, for the Imperial War Museum, three portrait busts of military subjects by Epstein including The Tin Hat and Sergeant D F Hunter, VC . Epstein spent most of 1919 making portrait sculptures but also returned to work on

15290-435: The sculpture, Epstein must have expected criticism. The menacing body mounted on the drill appeared to be assembled from machine parts, including a head on a shaft with the only organic feature the foetus within the creature's open rib-cage. The critic's response was almost universally hostile and abusive. P.G. Konody described Rock Drill as "unutterably loathsome" and Augustus John persuaded John Quinn not to buy it. Even

15429-560: The sculptures as "statuary which no careful father would wish his daughter, or no discriminating young man his fiancée to see." A police officer was called to climb the scaffolding to inspect the statues as was the Bishop of Stepney, Cosmo Gordon Lang , who approved of them. Several other public figures and artists defended the works and, at a meeting of its governing council in July 1908, the BMA agreed to keep them in place. In art-historical terms,

15568-498: The second half of the 19th century, especially as Prussian nationalistic historian Heinrich von Treitschke did much to promote this form of racism. He coined the phrase "the Jews are our misfortune" which would later be widely used by Nazis . According to Falk, Treitschke uses the term "Semitic" almost synonymously with "Jewish", in contrast to Renan's use of it to refer to a whole range of peoples, based generally on linguistic criteria. According to philologist Jonathan M. Hess ,

15707-421: The state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity," but that "criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic." It provided contemporary examples of ways in which antisemitism may manifest itself, including promoting the harming of Jews in the name of an ideology or religion; promoting negative stereotypes of Jews; holding Jews collectively responsible for

15846-484: The statues to be unsafe and were to be removed. Attempts to find an alternative solution, such as removing and re-carving elements of the statues, were hindered when Epstein insulted the Southern Rhodesian High Commissioner in a press interview. The parts hacked off included the heads and hands of all eighteen figures, the feet of most of them and other key defining elements, such as the foetus from

15985-471: The summer of 1916, the torso appeared more of a victim than the menacing figure of the original sculpture. At this point Epstein began to concentrate less on avant-garde sculpture and embrace more figurative forms of working. Later in 1915 Epstein showed a number of portrait busts, including those of Iris Beerbohm-Tree and Lilian Shelley , at a National Portrait Society exhibition, all of which received positive reviews and sold well. He subsequently produced

16124-563: The summer of 1933 at his cottage in Epping Forest and, in the space of two months, painted over a hundred landscapes and flower compositions. These were shown at Tooth's Gallery that Christmas and these Christmas exhibition of his paintings became a popular annual event. During September 1933, on his way to America, Albert Einstein spent some weeks at Roughton Heath , Norfolk, and agreed to sit for Epstein over seven days. Epstein remembered his meeting with Einstein as, "His glance contained

16263-471: The supportive reviewer for The Guardian concluded that the 'incongruity' of the work was 'too difficult for the mind to grasp'. In May 1916, Epstein, apparently mortified at the continuing slaughter of the war, made the decision to break up the sculpture. He removed the drill entirely and reduced the upper figure to a legless one-armed torso, which he had cast in gunmetal. When shown at the London Group in

16402-537: The term Antisemiten in the January issue of Neue Freie Presse . The Jewish Encyclopedia reports, "In February 1881, a correspondent of the Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums speaks of 'Anti-Semitism' as a designation which recently came into use ("Allg. Zeit. d. Jud." 1881, p. 138). On 19 July 1882, the editor says, 'This quite recent Anti-Semitism is hardly three years old. ' " The word "antisemitism"

16541-528: The term was originally used by its authors to "stress the radical difference between their own 'antisemitism' and earlier forms of antagonism toward Jews and Judaism." In 1879, German journalist Wilhelm Marr published a pamphlet, Der Sieg des Judenthums über das Germanenthum. Vom nicht confessionellen Standpunkt aus betrachtet ( The Victory of the Jewish Spirit over the Germanic Spirit. Observed from

16680-571: The twelve statues representing different stages of life were greatly criticised, notably by the National Vigilance Association , whose offices were opposite the building. Their view that the figures, particularly that of the heavily pregnant Maternity and the male nudes, were sexually explicit and insulting to Edwardian sensibilities was taken up by various newspapers. In June 1908 the London Evening Standard described

16819-533: The unfinished Adam formed the frontispiece of the first edition of Epstein's autobiography Let There Be Sculpture which was published in 1940. Forty pages, a fifth of the book, was devoted to Epstein's account of the Strand sculptures controversy. During the Second World War , Epstein was asked to undertake six commissions for the War Artists' Advisory Committee . After completing bronze busts of Admiral of

16958-735: The unhyphenated spelling, in order to "[dispel] the notion that there is an entity 'Semitism' which 'anti-Semitism' opposes." Others endorsing an unhyphenated term for the same reason include the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance , historian Deborah Lipstadt , Padraic O'Hare, professor of Religious and Theological Studies and Director of the Center for the Study of Jewish-Christian-Muslim Relations at Merrimack College ; and historians Yehuda Bauer and James Carroll . According to Carroll, who first cites O'Hare and Bauer on "the existence of something called 'Semitism ' ", "the hyphenated word thus reflects

17097-623: The upper figure in plaster instead. The start of World War I in 1914 saw the closure of a number of London art galleries and left Epstein in financial difficulties, unable to sell any work and with a large number of unfinished pieces. In March 1915, at a London Group exhibition at the Goupil Gallery , Epstein exhibited several works, including the Flenite pieces and Doves plus, for the first, and only, time in public, Rock Drill . By making an actual, unaltered, industrial drill an integral part of

17236-574: The womb. He carved two figures of pregnant women, one of which was eventually acquired by the Tate . Cursed Be the Day wherein I was Born was the plaster figure of a child, painted red, apparently crying or screaming. He created three marble sculptures of pairs of doves mating, the first two of which were shown in group exhibitions during 1913 and at his solo exhibition at the Twenty-One Gallery in December 1913. The reviews of all these works, in both

17375-510: The works to Blackpool where, along with Genesis , they were exhibited in the anatomical curiosities section of his waxworks. The works were displayed alongside dancing marionettes, diseased body parts, and conjoined twin babies in jars. Placing his work within the context of freakish curiosity was a constant source of anguish to Epstein. After the Second World War there was a notable change in attitudes to Epstein and, nearing seventy, he

17514-500: The world finances, a theory promoted in the fraudulent The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and later repeated by Henry Ford and his The Dearborn Independent . In the modern era, such myths continue to be spread in books such as The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews published by the Nation of Islam and on the internet. Derek Penslar writes that there are two components to

17653-581: The world ... Nobody says, 'I am anti-Semitic.' You cannot, after Hitler. The word has gone out of fashion." The study of antisemitism has become politically controversial because of differing interpretations of the Holocaust and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. There are two competing views of antisemitism, eternalism, and contextualism. The eternalist view sees antisemitism as separate from other forms of racism and prejudice and an exceptionalist, transhistorical force teleologically culminating in

17792-401: Was 'a symbol of man, bound, crowned with thorns and facing with a relentless and over-mastering gaze of pity and prescience our unhappy world'. First shown, unfinished, at the Leicester Galleries in March 1935, Ecce Homo led to a storm of criticism including accusations of blasphemy. Some newspapers considered the work so grotesque they refused to publish photographs of it. Anthony Blunt wrote

17931-425: Was about to enjoy a sustained period of recognition and one of the busiest periods of his artistic life. Early in 1950, he received his first commission in twenty years for a public monument, the statue Youth Advancing , for the 1951 Festival of Britain . Epstein's 1947 carving of Lazarus was bought by New College, Oxford and installed in the chapel there in January 1952. In 1947, the architect Louis Osman

18070-589: Was among the artists hired to produce artworks for a new London nightclub, The Cave of the Golden Calf , which brought him into contact with a number of younger artists, notably Wyndham Lewis and the poet T. E. Hulme . This led to Epstein becoming associated with the short-lived Vorticism movement and contributing two illustrations to the first edition of the Vorticist magazine Blast . Early in 1913, after living in rented rooms in Montparnasse for three months,

18209-560: Was born in the United States, and moved to Europe in 1902, becoming a British subject in 1910. Early in his career, in 1912, The Pall Mall Gazette described Epstein as "a Sculptor in Revolt, who is in deadly conflict with the ideas of current sculpture." Revolting against ornate, pretty art, he made bold, often harsh and massive forms in bronze or stone. His sculpture is distinguished by its vigorous rough-hewn realism . Avant-garde in concept and style, his works often shocked audiences. This

18348-472: Was borrowed into English from German in 1881. Oxford English Dictionary editor James Murray wrote that it was not included in the first edition because "Anti-Semite and its family were then probably very new in English use, and not thought likely to be more than passing nonce-words... Would that anti-Semitism had had no more than a fleeting interest!" The related term " philosemitism " was used by 1881. From

18487-621: Was bought by the explorer Apsley Cherry-Garrard and eventually acquired by the National Galleries of Scotland . In 1922, Epstein secured a commission from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds , RSPB, for a memorial in Hyde Park, London to the author and naturalist W. H. Hudson . By early 1923, he had produced a model of Hudson beside a tree, looking at a bird. The RSPB approved

18626-516: Was carved from a rectangular limestone block, which he retained, complete with chisel-marks, as a base for the child's head, so that it appeared as if the figure had emerged from the rock. Both Rom , and another carving called Sun Goddess , show the influence of oriental and Egyptian art on Epstein and how far he was moving away from more classical and accepted traditions of sculpture. Epstein spent nine months in Gill's studio at Ditchling carving, from

18765-590: Was completed to a storm of criticism. A debate raged for some time over demands to remove the statues. To placate the railway board, Holden persuaded Epstein to modify the penis of the smaller of the two figures represented on Day . An attempt to vandalise Night was made in October 1929, a few days before the Hudson memorial was defaced. The controversy affected Epstein's ability to gain commissions for large public works, which largely dried up for twenty years. Without any commissions for large public monuments throughout

18904-539: Was employed by the nuns of the Convent of the Holy Child to rebuild their bomb-damaged buildings on Cavendish Square in central London. Osman's design featured a bridge that linked two parts of the complex and would support a large sculpture. The nuns were keen to have a sculpture of the Madonna and Child and planned to employ a Catholic sculptor for the work. Osman was determined to have a work by Epstein and, without consulting

19043-411: Was granted, which allowed Epstein to prepare for a major solo exhibition at the Leicester Galleries in February and March 1917. The exhibition drew large crowds and was a critical and commercial success. A further three-month exemption from conscription was granted, but after a press campaign featuring objections from, among others, G. K. Chesterton and the sculptor Adrian Jones , plus a question in

19182-698: Was not only a result of their, often explicit, sexual content, but also because they abandoned the conventions of classical Greek sculpture favoured by European academic critics and sculptors, to experiment instead with the aesthetics of art traditions as diverse as those of India, China, ancient Greece, West Africa and the Pacific Islands. His larger sculptures were his most expressive and experimental, but also his most vulnerable. Such factors may have focused disproportionate attention on certain aspects of Epstein's long and productive career, throughout which he aroused hostility, especially challenging taboos surrounding

19321-446: Was sought in order to purchase the documents for The New Art Gallery Walsall ; this was finally achieved in 2006, with funding for a permanent archivist obtained in 2009. The earliest of the archives dates back to the 1880s when a teenage Jacob Epstein wrote to the philanthropist Helen Moore asking if she would fund him so that he may pursue his dream of becoming an artist. She duly agreed to fund him and also arranged for him to work on

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