Sale 2532 - 19th & 20th Century Prints & Drawings, March 5, 2020

381 c HENRI EPSTEIN Femme Nue Debout . Oil on canvas. 405x265 mm; 15 7 / 8 x10 3 / 8 inches. Signed in oil, lower left recto. Ex-collection the artist Norman Carton, New York; thence by descent to the current owner, private collection, New York. Epstein (1891-1944) was born in Lódz, Poland. He studied at the Jakub Kacenbogen Drawing School, Lódz, then at the Fine Art Academy, Munich. In 1913 he settled in Paris, becoming a member of La Ruche (the beehive), a complex with a honeycomb-maze of artist’s studios in the Montparnasse district. Many of the artists who worked there were, like Epstein, from Eastern Europe and had come to Paris to explore Modern art and be part of a community of fellow creatives. Being in Paris also allowed many of the artists freedom from the religious persecution endured by their families in their home countries. While Epstein initially explored the tenets of Fauvism in his work, he moved later towards Expressionism. In February 1944 he was arrested by the Gestapo while in refuge on his farm near Epernon, and was subsequently interned in Drancy and deported to Auschwitz where he was assassinated. [5,000/8,000]