Compassion in the Park

Shrouded in all the mystery of an atomic shipment, three huge packing cases arrived last week in Philadelphia. In them were seven tons of bronze sculpture by Britain's famed U.S.-born sculptor, Sir Jacob Epstein. They had been cast in secrecy in a London foundry so that Philadelphians would get first look at the newest adornment to their city: a group of five bronze figures, representing "Social Consciousness," to stand as a part of the Ellen Phillips Samuel Memorial in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park.

Sculptor Epstein, 74, enjoying all the secrecy, could not resist hinting from London: "I consider this one of my major works." Epstein is apt to consider all of his works "major," but this time Philadelphia agreed. Said R. Sturgis Ingersoll, president of the Philadelphia Museum of Art: "The works may be the finest Epstein has ever done . . . We believe we have acquired Epstein at his very best."

As riggers worked in a high wind to place the 13-ft.-high group on a temporary wooden base, it became clear that by social consciousness Epstein meant compassion. The central, seated figure, which Epstein calls "Fate itself," is a long-torsoed woman with high-cheeked, Slavic features, stretching forth her arms. On the right stands another female figure swathed in heavy, claylike drapery, receiving in her arms a cadaverous figure of a man, which, explains Epstein, "is man-child returning to its eternal mother, which is Mother Earth. It encompasses life and death." Still to be erected at week's end was an elongated Christlike figure raising a degraded man. A priest, stopping by Epstein's studio while this figure was being modeled, asked Epstein if it represented Christ healing the leper. Epstein allows that the priest was on the right track, but he insists that all his figures are symbolic, not literal representations.

Sculptor Epstein emphatically believes that the average Philadelphia park stroller will understand exactly what he had in mind. Says he: "There's no mystery about the figures, nothing about it that's modern --I mean modern in the bad sense. It's human. It will appeal because it is human. Everyone will have different ideas of what social consciousness is, but everyone, especially in America, is cognizant of social consciousness."

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