Bust of Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

Bronze bust of Albert Einstein by Jacob Epstein, 1933. Modelled during a week of informal morning sittings near Cromer, Norfolk.

This bust of German physicist Albert Einstein was modelled by the pioneer of modern sculpture Jacob Epstein in 1933. At the time, Einstein was an internationally celebrated scientist and winner of the 1921 Physics Nobel Prize for ‘his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect’. With Nazism’s rise to power in Germany in 1933 though, Einstein came under threat and, that year, he renounced his German citizenship. In September he was invited to Britain, where he had lectured many times, by anti-fascist MP Commander Oliver Locker-Lampson who offered him refuge in his cottage on the Norfolk coast (a photograph shows Einstein with Commander Locker-Lampson during this period 1983-5236/C04177).

Locker-Lampson invited Epstein, then one of Britain’s foremost sculptors, to come to Norfolk to make a bust of Einstein. Over the course of a week, Epstein modelled this life-size and rough-textured bust, sensitively capturing Einstein’s appearance: his dishevelled hair, furrowed brow and melancholic gaze.

In his autobiography, the sculptor recalled that 'Einstein appeared dressed very comfortably in a pullover with his wild hair floating in the wind. His glance contained a mixture of the humane, the humorous, and the profound. This was a combination that delighted me. He resembled the ageing Rembrandt.’

Within a month of his arrival though Einstein sailed to the United States to take up a professorship at Princeton University and the bust remained unfinished, accounting in part for its rough finish.

It was cast in bronze and is today in several national and international collections.