A NEW EPSTEIN SHOCKER

Taranaki Daily News, 9 February 1931, Page 5

A NEW EPSTEIN SHOCKER

WOMAN WITH APE’S FACE.

“HAIR LIKE SHIP’S HAWSER.”

By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright.

Rec. 5.5 p.m. London, Feb. 7. The sculptor Epstein has excelled his record with a marble statue of a woman entitled ‘‘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 critics expressing the opinion that it is unfit for public display, and advising the proprietors of the gallery to remove it. Epstein represents Genesis as a woman with pronouncedly primitive features. The abdomen and legs are of astonishing proportions, and this is emphasised by the fact that the maible ends at the knees. The Daily Telegraph’s critic describes the woman as having ‘‘a face like an ape’s, breasts like pumpkins, hands twice as gross aS a navvy’s,' and hair like a ship’s hawsers.” Those who have seen it i arc practically unanimous in condemning this study of palaeolithic motherhood as a grotesque perversion of the decencies of nature and humanity, but Epstein only smiles, and says: “What do the critics matter. They are only silly, ignorant sheep, not sculptors.” . Asked to explain the statue, he said: “Gan a man explain in five minutes what has taken years in conception and months to create. It is beautiful. Whereupon he showed the interviewer to the door. . The Daily Express critic says: 1 had not seen plasphemy in stone until to-day. Genesis is a bad joke in stone, artistically, aljsurd, and anatomically comical.”