Rock Drill (Jacob Epstein) Rock Drill (Jacob Epstein) Rock Drill (c. 1913–1915) and the associated Torso in Metal from Rock Drill (c. 1913–1916) are Jacob Epstein's most radical sculptures. "Rock Drill" comprises a plaster figure perched on top of an actual rock drill. The combination of an industrial rock drill and the carved plaster figure makes the artwork an example of a "Readymade" created at the same time as Marcel Duchamp's "Bicycle Wheel" (1913). A 1974 reconstruction, by Ken Cook and Ann Christopher, is part of the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery's collection. "Rock Drill" has been heralded as embodying the spirit of "radical
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