Conversation

Epstein's artistic talent was quickly recognize and his artwork were greatly appreciated on numerous exhibitions. He displayed his paintings in Vienna, Dresden (1912), Berlin (1909 and 1913) and Düsseldorf (1913). Artistic scholarships, he received during that time, allowed him to travel around Europe and Middle East. Rome and Palestine were among different cities that he visited.In 1920 at the Vienna Künstlerhaus his individual art show took place. Apart from awards he then received the title of Professor. Yet in 1935 the painter emigrated to South Africa, where he died eleven years later. At the first decade of the 20th century the artist gained a great success by creating realistic and idealistic pictures of Jewish communities and images from their daily life. He painted also biblical and genre scenes, as well as portraits and landscape, which are comparatively small in numbers. During his lifetime, Epstein was already recognized as one of the most important Jewish painter. Critics of his times compered his pieces to artwork of the greatest Jewish artists, such as: Max Libermann, Lesser Ury or Josef Israëls.