Following a succesful fundraising campaign led by the Henry Moore Institute, Jacob Epstein's "Flenite Relief" was recently acquired for Leeds City Art Gallery. This gallery 4 presentation unveils this object , revealing the sculpture for what it is and providing viewers with a unique opportunity to grasp its radical composition and meaning.
Previously regarded as a technical experiment and once entitled "Flenite Relief: Woman Clasping a Phallus", this display exhibition reveals a complex and highly sophisticated sculpture portraying a woman bent double in the act of giving birth, a male baby emerging from between her legs. However this image of birth inscribed over its two sides also has a darker meaning. For the overall form of the stone is reminiscent of a gravestone and so we are faced with an image of childbirth carved into the very shape of death.
"Flenite" was a word that the sculptor invented to evoke an imaginary ancient meaning for the flecked , dark green serpentine stone that he used. A radical image at the time of its creation, Creation Myths shows that "Flenite Relief" still has extraordinary power today, almost a hundred years after it was made.

Gallery 4
Henry Moore Institute
74 The Headrow
Leeds
LS1 3AH
Admission Free