Artist reignites debate over BMA sculptures
The Third Campaign: A Project by Neal White An exhibition at the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, until 27 March www.henry-moore-fdn.co.uk
Rating: ***
Sculptures that caused a scandal when they were first carved for the BMA headquarters in 1908 have inspired an exhibition by contemporary artist Neal White. The sculptures, by Jacob Epstein (1880-1959), were 18 larger than life, naked figures that were commissioned to adorn the façade of the then new BMA's London headquarters on a prominent site at the corner of Agar Street and the Strand. White's exhibition is an attempt to reignite the debates that have raged over Epstein's sculptural scheme.
Charles Holden (1875-1960), the architect of the Strand building, used dark granite on the lower half, in deference to earlier buildings. However, he selected white Portland stone for the upper half to achieve a more modern effect. It was Holden who commissioned Epstein, intending that the sculptor's white figures set against granite, on each side of the third floor windows, would visually suture together the façade's darker and lighter elements. Although Epstein rejected the BMA proposal that he depict famous medical men, he agreed to carve figures symbolising health, medicine, and chemical research.
The façade of the former BMA building with the statues in place, and (below) the figure of Old Age in a niche
In fact Epstein and Holden had a more radical agenda for the sequence, based on a shared belief that "we are ashamed of our nakedness—and yet it is in the frank confession of our nakedness that our regeneration lies." Epstein declared that he would carve "noble and heroic forms to express in sculpture the great primal acts of man and woman." Although his intention was to celebrate the inherent dignity of the naked body, "Maternity," depicting an amply proportioned mother and her child, provoked a storm of moral indignation in early summer 1908.
The façade of the former BMA building with the statues in place, and (above) the figure of Old Age in a niche
The new BMA building was across the road from the National Vigilance Association, which was immediately scandalised. On 19 June 1908 the front page of the Evening Standard thundered that Epstein's carvings were "a form of statuary which no careful father would wish his daughter, or no discriminating young man, his fiancée, to see." Not surprisingly, on 11 July, the BMJ reported that "the whole Strand opposite was packed with people, most of them girls and young men, all staring up at the statues." The BMA chairman panicked; however, influential figures in the arts sprang to Epstein's defence, and he was allowed to finish carving the remaining figures.
The carvings remained undisturbed in their niches until 1935, when the government of Southern Rhodesia bought the building and its high commissioner expressed his disapproval of them, which provoked renewed defence by Epstein's supporters. Two years later, a piece of stone fell and bruised a pedestrian's foot, and the new owners saw their chance when the London County Council ordered them to make the sculptural scheme safe. Anything considered unstable, including heads and limbs, was chiselled off in an act of vandalism that ruined Epstein's work as a whole.
White's response to the earlier controversies surrounding the figures comprises photographs that survive in the Henry Moore Institute's archive and a new film by him of the contested site. His exhibition challenges us to consider our role, as the audience for public sculpture.
Colin Martin, independent consultant in healthcare communication, London
studentBMJ 2005
