Jacob Epstein of Epstein's early commissions is "Oscar Wilde's tomb" in Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, "which was condemned as indecent and at one point was covered in tarpaulin by the French police." Between 1913 and 1915, Epstein was associated with the short-lived Vorticism movement and produced one of his best known sculptures "The Rock Drill". In 1915, John Quinn, wealthy American collector and patron to the modernists, bought some Epstein sculptures to add to his private collection. In 1916, Epstein was commissioned by Viscount Tredegar to produce a bronze head of Newport poet W. H. Davies. The bronze, regarded by many as
Barbara Hepworth her large-scale bronzes. Her eldest son, Paul, was killed on 13 February 1953 in a plane crash while serving with the Royal Air Force in Thailand. A memorial to him, "Madonna and Child", is in the parish church of St Ives. Exhausted, in part from her son's death, Hepworth travelled to Greece with her good friend Margaret Gardiner in August 1954. They visited Athens, Delphi, and many of the Aegean Islands. When Hepworth returned to St Ives from Greece in August 1954, she found that Gardiner had sent her a large shipment of Nigerian guarea hardwood. Although she received only