Jacob Epstein was born in New York in 1880, of Polish-Jewish parentage. From New York he moved to London and became a British citizen in 1907. He spent some time in Paris in 1912-13, where he met and became influenced by many well-known French artists, but returned to England in 1916 and remained there for the rest of his life.

Epstein made his name as a sculptor of monuments and portraits but he was also an occasional painter and illustrator. His work explores concepts which were central to modernist sculpture, including 'truth to material' and the direct carving technique in which the sculpture's final form evolves through the process of carving. Like other modernist artists, Epstein was also influenced by so-called primitive art. He was consistently the most controvertial artist working in the UK for much of the period up to 1940.

You can learn more about Jacob Epstein in the Tate Collection