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Deirdre

Deirdre

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Jacob Epstein

"At the beginning of the war the Epsteins engaged an exceptionally pretty girl called Deirdre as cook-housekeeper. Her talents in the kitchen turned out to be negligible and she was called upon to pose as a model. This, it appeared, was what she had all along intended to happen. Though hungry for immortality, Deirdre was reluctant to expose her naked body - Epstein was congenitally incapable of understanding such modesty - and her shyness probable accounts for the fact that in the three portraits the sculptor made of her she is either holding her arms in front of her breasts or leaning forward huddled in a huddled and self-depricating way. The first portrait of Deirdre (with arms), because of its graceful gesture, is the most rococo of the sculptor's works, and brings to mind certain Bavarian wood carvings of the mid-eighteenth century. The model's long curly hair tumbles onto her shoulders; her eyes looking down, dreaming; a wistful half-smile flickers on her lipsl and her slender arms are arrested in movement as if she were about to fold them over her breasts." Buckle, Richard. "Jacob Epstein: Sculptor." Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1963. p. 264
Artist
Jacob Epstein
(English, b. United States, 1880 - 1959)
Title
Deirdre
Date
1941
Medium
Bronze
Dimensions
25 1/4 x 19 5/8 x 17 1/4 in. Overall
Credit
Bequest of Alexander and Henrietta W. Hollaender
Accession No.
1992.215
Classification
Sculpture
Geography
England

Related

22 January 1953, sold by the artist, Jacob Epstein (London, England), to Alexander and Henrietta W. Hollaender (Oak Ridge, TN); 1987, deposited on long-term loan to Elvehjem Museum of Art [now called Chazen Museum of Art]; 1992, bequeathed to Elvehjem Museum of Art [now called Chazen Museum of Art]

  • Elvehjem Art Center. "Inaugural Exhibition: 19th & 20th Century Art from Collections of Alumni & Friends." Madison, WI: Regents of the University of Wisconsin, 1970. p. 82, no. 93
  • Buckle, Richard. "Jacob Epstein: Sculptor." Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1963. pp. 264-265, 428, nos. 401, 402
  • Elvehjem Museum of Art. "Bulletin 1991-1993." Elvehjem Museum of Art, 1994. p. 185

  • Inaugural Exhibition: 19th & 20th Cen. Art from Collection of Alumni & Friends: Elvehjem Art Center, 9/11/1970–11/8/1970

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