Jacob Epstein: the immigrant bringing morals to the Oval Office | Jonathan Jones

The bust of Churchill that sits across from Donald Trump’s desk is created by an immigrant, who reminds us of both the glory of humanity and the evil of fascism

Hours before Donald Trump announced his draconian executive order banning citizens of seven Muslim countries from entering the United States, he posed with an immigrant in the Oval Office. Or at least, a work by that immigrant’s hand. Jacob Epstein’s bust of Winston Churchill has become a bizarre political football (although you’d hurt your foot if you kicked it), returned to the Oval Office with great fanfare as the symbol of a special relationship between Brexit Britain and Trump’s America. Yet this work of art holds a subversive secret.

Its creator embodied everything Trump hates. Epstein was the product of America’s previous openness to immigrants. Born in New York in 1880, he was the son of Jewish refugees from Poland. There is absolutely no difference between the plight of the refugees Trump rejects and Jewish refugees from persecution in eastern Europe more than a century ago. Epstein’s parents were typical of the “huddled masses” welcomed to the US by the Statue of Liberty’s pro-immigrant inscription. Then again, they were not typical of anything – they were individuals, just like the millions of individuals all defined without further enquiry as a collective threat to America by Trump’s terrifyingly irrational and inhumane diktat. And they had a very individualist son.

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