NEW EPSTEIN SENSATION

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 672, 25 May 1929, Page 9

NEW EPSTEIN SENSATION

CRITICS CLASH ABOUT FIGURE OF NIGHT “A GREAT COARSE OBJECT” I (Australian and A'.Z. Press Association) LONDON, Friday. The Rima sensation is likely to be eclipsed by Jacob Epstein’s group of statuary unveiled today at the headquarters of the underground railway In Westminster. The group represents a seated figure of Night carved! in Portland stone. The critic of the “Daily Telegraph” describes it as “a great coarse object in debased Indo-Chinese stj-le representing a creature half Buddha, half mummy, bearing on its knees a corpselike child of enormous proportions.” Other ciitics applaud Night as a characteristic example of modernist art. Epstein is now finishing a corresponding figure to be called Day. Other modernist sculptors have supplied decorative sculpture for the * building, which is one of the foremost examples of business architecture in the metropolis. Rima is the memorial to the late W. H. Hudson, the naturalist and bird lover, in Hyde Park. It depicts Rima, a spirit of the woods, surrounded by flying birds, the subject being taken from Hudson’s “Green Mansions.” Its rugged aspect aroused a storm of controversy. Epstein, who was born in New York, lias lived in London for many years. Messrs. Eric Gill, H. Gerrard, Allan Wyon, Eric Aumonier, H. Moore and F. Rabinovitch are making figures representing the winds.