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ental nature that is the
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1927) concerning the
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Portraits

selves upon the artist. This can never result in a successful work——
one that renders the character of the model. Sir Hugh Walpole was
one of these sitters. He insisted in sitting to me like a Pharaoh, with
head held high and chin stuck out. In reality, Sir Hugh was the most
genial of men with sparkling, twinkling, humour in his eye, and his
mouth wreathed in a kindly and genial smile. But with the rigidity
of Sir Hugh’s pose I could do nothing. I knew that the head was well
modelled, but as for a portrait of my model’s real self, I never
thought it was that for a moment. It was Sir Hugh Walpole in the
role of Benito Mussolini.

JOSEPH CONRAD

Muirhead Bone had arranged that I should do a bust of Conrad
for him. I had desired, ten years before, to work from him and had
spoken to Richard Curle about it, but had been informed by him
that Conrad could not sit for me owing to the intervention of a
painter “friend ”. At the time I was deeply disappointed and dropped
the idea, but in 1924. the commission was finally arranged. My ad-
miration for Conrad was immense, and he had a head that appealed
to a sculptor, massive and fine at the same time, so I jumped at the
idea of working from him at last. After a meeting in London it was
arranged with him that I should go down to his place at Oswalds.
near Canterbury, and——at my suggestion——-should live in an inn in
a nearby village while working on the bust. This arrangement always
suits me best, as I prefer to be free outside my working hours.

I set out from London on a cold March morning, feeling some-
what ill and down-hearted. I hated working away from my studio,
amidst uncertain and perhaps disagreeable conditions. Before begin-
ning a work I am timid and apprehensive. What will the lighting be?
A good start is everything, and with a subject like Conrad I wanted
to do justice to myself. My taxi contained my working materials,
stands, clay, and working tools. It seemed a long journey to Kent,
I arrived towards dark with snow falling. Conrad met me and we
arranged the room in which I should work, where I unpacked my
baggage. I was then conducted across a park to the village of Bridge
and the inn where I was to stay. This inn seemed to be of the gloomi-
est and coldest type. The whole mood of the place, with the sodden
country-side, promised a cheerless beginning.

73


Epstein: An Autobiography

We usually had tea in his small, cosy study. On one occasion, as
there was company, I recall having tea in a large, grand, shuttered
room with French furniture very conventionally arranged. Conrad
was strongly feudal in his ideas and when I complained of the servile
attitude of the villagers round about, he said that they were happier
so. My reference to the villagers was occasioned by an incident which
happened at Bridge. I had remarked on the astonishing velocity of a
racing-car which had driven through the village at race-track speed
scattering children and chickens. At the local barber’s I mentioned
this, and ventured to remark that the children were in danger of
their lives. The barber said that in fact several children had been
killed, but that the racing magnate had paid the parents handsomely,
and all the villagers looked to him for employment. The report that
Conrad refused a knighthood because it was offered by a Socialist
Government, would, if true, bear out my observation about his
feudal cast of mind.

I looked at Conrad’s bookshelf. He had not many books. In no
sense a library. A complete edition of Turgeniev in English. We
talked of books and, expecting him to be interested in Melville’s
M012): Dick, I mentioned it, and Conrad burst into a furious denuncia-
tion of it. “He knows nothing of the sea. Fantastic, ridiculous,” he
said. When I mentioned that the work was symbolical and mystical:
“Mystical my eye! My old boots are mystical.” “Meredith? His
characters are ten feet high.” D. H. Lawrence had started well, but
had gone wrong. “ Filth. Nothing but obseenities.” For Henry James
he had unqualified admiration. Of his own novels he said it was a
toss up at one time as to whether he would write in English or French.
He emphasised the amount of labour he gave to a novel to get it to
satisfy himself.

At a few of the sittings Conrad dictated letters to the secretary.
His English was strongly foreign with a very guttural accent, so that
his secretary frequently failed to get the right word, which made
Conrad growl. I would try to detach myself from the work to listen.
His composition was beautiful. Sentence followed sentence in classic
“ Conrad”, totally unlike his conversational manner, which was
free, easy, and colloquial.

The work on the bust was nearing completion. One day at the
end of the sittings, Mrs. Conrad appeared at the door to see it. She

76

.- ._ ._ _T”_..__..

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gave one glance and fled
the artist sees. The fact,
haps a really mediocre
spect. When George Be
why he had given Slttll
claimed: “Why, he is a
the room where the por'
Conrad’s own opinior
in a letter he wrote to
executor. “The bust of
marvellously effective pi
than a masterly interprc
to posterity like that.” I
the National Portrait G;
At last the bust was 0
carry it away to London
and travelled with the b
and read that Joseph C:

In 1933 rumours of t]
his flight to England. He
mander Locker-Lampsc
some correspondence wi
working from Einstein,
travelled to Cromer, an
the camp situated in a s

Einstein appeared drc
wild hair floating in th
the humane, the humor:
tion which delighted me

The sittings took pla-
piano, and I could hard’
whom there were sever
remove the door, which
I would like the roof off
but I did not demand it,