Lester Epstein (1919-1963)

I have acquired a body of work by Epstein, consisting of abstract works on paper, dating from around the 1950’s. Many works are signed and some dated. Papers consist of drawings, watercolours, collages, etchings and monotypes, with a strong influence of artists such as Klee, Miro and Wifredo Lam. Provenance: John Skeaping RA (1901-1980); and thence by descent.

Epstein studied at the Isaac Delgardo Museum of Art and later served as a registrar there (Now the New Orleans Museum of Art (or NOMA). He was integral to the artistic community in New Orleans and was known by some as the `St Louis Gauguin`, when he was quoted in the St.Louis post in 1953, as an artist ‘Doing a Gauguin’, where he devoted himself to painting in a remote fishing Mexican fishing village until last August. The paper then mentions a one man show in London and plans to travel following the exhibition.  He wrote and published a few books in the late 1950s and met John Skeaping in Mexico (see Skeaping's publication `The Big Tree of Mexico`, London, 1952, chapter 12). Epstein stayed with the artist and his family in Devon although they briefly shared a house in Arles in 1960. The Delgado Museum in New Orleans held a retrospective exhibit of his work in 1964 following his premature death at the age of 44.

The last image details part of the whole collection. This listing is for a single paper only, as detailed below.

Ink drawing on red wove paper, initialed top right. Reasonable condition, with light handling and other minor marks/blemishes.

Paper measures 9cm x 19.3cm