GROTESQUE “GENESIS”

Hawera Star, Volume L, 10 February 1931, Page 5

GROTESQUE “GENESIS”

STATUE ROUSES' CRITICISM PRIMITIVE FEATURES AND BUILD. • Uniitu l’r«sS> Association —By Electric Telegraph Oopyngut.) LONDON, Feb. 7. Epstein has excelled his own record, with the marble statue of a woman en.titled “Genesis,” which is being exhibited at the Leicester Gallery. There is every promise of a controversy eclipsing the Rima and Underground Railway statues. It is. already responsible for the critics expressing the opinion that it is unfit for public display, and advising the proprietors of the Gallery to remove it.

Epstein has represented “Genesis’ as a woman with pronouncedly primitive features, the abdomen and logs are of astonishing proportions, and this is emphasised b.v the fact, that the marble ends at the knees.

The “Daily Telegraph's” oritie describes f.hei woman as. having “A face like an ape’s, breasts like pumpkins, hands twice as gross as a navvy’s, anti hair like a ship’s hawsers. ’’ Those who have seen it are practically unanimous in condemning this study of palaeolithic motherhood as a grotesque peversion of the decencies of nature and humanity, but Epstein only smiles and says, “What do critics matter? They are only silly, ignorant sheep, not sculptors.” Asked to explain the statue lie said : “Can a, man explain in five minutes, what he has taken years in conception and months to create'. It is beautiful.” Then lie showed the interviewer to the door.

The “Daily Express” critic says : “I had not seen blasphemy in stone until to-day. ‘Genesis’ is a bad joke in stone', artistically absurd and anatomically comical.”