Leda (with Coxcomb) 1940

Editor: This intimate bronze head, titled "Leda (with Coxcomb)," was created in 1940 by Jacob Epstein. There's an undeniable immediacy about it. The roughly worked texture of the bronze makes it feel incredibly tactile, doesn't it? Curator: Indeed. Epstein’s use of modern idiom to portray the familiar scene in the classical myth of Leda lends to its dynamic quality. Consider how the slightly asymmetrical composition creates a visual tension—almost a struggle between the abstract form and representational intention. Editor: That "struggle," as you call it, I see it manifesting in the clear impression of manual labor. I find myself pondering the labor of its making. Bronze is obviously heavy material, and requires casting and handling that shaped its appearance, each movement informing its character. Curator: The visible tool marks, however, become more than just traces of labor; they delineate and accentuate features—the curvature of the cheek, the definition of the brow—that lend themselves to a particular expressiveness of the infantile figure that dominates the overall structural harmony. Editor: Do you think the implied "struggle" is between process and beauty, or does it serve as a tension point for an exploration between mythic narrative and real world tangible thing, an industrial material shaped by tools to communicate beauty or express ideas, and possibly also political notions of what the role of sculpture and artists are in modernity? Curator: I concede, and the title injects a disquieting tone to what at first glance appears like a tender observation of infancy. Editor: It makes us rethink innocence itself and its creation within very human labor! Viewing “Leda (with Coxcomb)” has really clarified the powerful ways that art can reveal so much about process. Curator: For me, the conversation underscored the importance of the work's formal structure, that informs the complex theme communicated by the title to give it coherence and artistic gravitas.