Rock Drill (Jacob Epstein) Modernism more dramatically than any other sculpture, English or continental, then or since". Jacob Epstein (1880–1959) was an American-born sculptor who had moved to Europe in 1902, and taken British citizenship in 1911. Although Epstein was not officially a member of the Vorticists, not having signed the Vorticist Manifesto, the full-figure sculpture has also been hailed as the pinnacle of Vorticist art. Originally a positive statement, "Rock Drill" stood as a celebration of modern machinery and masculine virility. Wyndham Lewis described the sculpture as 'one of the best things he [Epstein] has done. The nerve-like figure perched on the machinery,
Jacob Epstein the smaller of the two figures represented on "Day". But the controversy affected his commissions for public work which dried up until World War II. Between the late 1930s and the mid-1950s, numerous works by Epstein were exhibited in Blackpool. "Adam", "Consummatum Est", "Jacob and the Angel and Genesis", and other works, were initially displayed in an old drapery shop surrounded by red velvet curtains. The crowds were ushered in at the cost of a shilling by a barker on the street. After a small tour of American fun fairs, the works were returned to Blackpool and were exhibited in