About this lot

Description

§ Jacob Epstein KBE (American/British 1880-1959)
Reclining Nude, 1928 signed 'Epstein' (lower left) pencil 42.5 x 55cm

Footnote: Provenance: Sale; Christie's, South Kensington, 28 March 1996, lot 37 Sale; Sotheby's, London, 2 October 1996, lot 87 Exhibited: London, Godfrey Phillips Gallery, Drawings by Epstein, 1928, no.44 Literature: Hubert Wellington, Epstein - Seventy-Five Drawings, J. Saville & Co., 1929 (ill.no.44) The present lot was one of several pencil studies of women of colour that Epstein produced in the summer of 1928 and, whilst seemingly divergent from his best-known works, is demonstrative of Epstein’s lifelong endeavour to disrupt and challenge European paradigms of beauty. Unlike many of his contemporaries and predecessors, who erased and denied the black body a place in art, Epstein’s sketches elevate his models to a position traditionally occupied only by white, European models. A similar sketch by Epstein, which depicts the same unnamed model, is held by the Tate Gallery, London.

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