Writer, sculptor, and founder of the antique jewellery shop Cameo Corner, Moshe Oved (aka Edward Goodack or Edward Good) was born into a Jewish family in Poland in 1885. In 1903 he immigrated to England and settled in London’s East End, where he initially worked as a watchmaker. He was a founding member of the Ben Uri Society in 1915 and a great supporter of Yiddish culture, holding an honorary office within Ben Uri from its inception until 1956, and always maintaining that its main goal should be to collect pictures and open a gallery. The collection in these years was influenced by his taste as he helped to fund and facilitate the acquisition of a number of important early works by artists including Simeon Solomon, Jacob Kramer, David Bomberg and Samuel Hirszenberg. Oved collected 124 autobiographical stories and short tales in his book Visions and Jewels (1925), and included anecdotes about Max Nordau, Sholem Asch and Jacob Epstein, among many others. His other volume, The Book of Affinity (1933) was a deluxe production with original colour lithographs by Epstein. Oved also presented two busts by Epstein to Ben Uri in 1947.
According to a story, it was while sheltering in the basement of Cameo Corner during the Blitz, that Oved first began modelling animal design rings to steady his trembling hands. He took up sculpting at the end of the war and created a series of small bronze heads and candelabra to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust.
