Winged Figure in 1961. John Lewis originally approached Jacob Epstein to create a sculpture to decorate the plain Portland stone side wall of the new store, but he declined as he was engaged on other commissions. Instead, in May 1961, John Lewis asked six other artists to propose designs. In addition to Hepworth – whose breakthrough public sculpture, "Meridian", had recently been installed outside State House on Holborn – the others were Ralph Brown, Geoffrey Clarke, Tony Hollaway, Stefan Knapp, William Mitchell and Hans Tisdall. None of their initial designs was accepted. Hepworth had been asked to express "the idea of common
Jacob Epstein (spy) the Gnome Project, which was the secret plan to free Ramón Mercader, Leon Trotsky's murderer, from jail. Epstein is referenced in Venona decrypt 800 New York to Moscow 28 May 1943, and another decrypt on 30 May 1943. The material cites Epstein as having placed two agents in the prison where Mercader was held. The plan called for moving Mercader out of Mexico once the jailbreak was made. Venona decrypt 193–194 Mexico City to Moscow, 14 March 1944 identifies Anna Colloms, while on a courier mission to Mexico, reporting the KGB detected surveillance of Ruth Wilson, Epstein's wife, and Colloms,