Scottish River

The New Art Gallery, Walsall, is the home of the Garman Ryan Collection, given to Walsall in 1972 by Kathleen, Lady Epstein, the widow of the sculptor. This pastel is probably a very late work by Epstein, made during a visit to Scotland in 1956. He spent most of the holiday in the woods near Gleneagles, painting. This work is an unusual foray into pastels, a medium which Epstein had rarely employed. He usually preferred gouache and watercolour for his pictorial work. In pastel, his line becomes more pronounced, the picture surface dissected with dramatic horizontal and vertical lines. The picture is unusual both in technique and subject for this date. Most of Epstein's landscapes are of Epping Forest and date from the 1930s. The work was probably executed only three years before the artist's death and may have been retained by his widow as a memento from that late period and their holiday together.