Sholem Asch (aka Shalom Ash, 1880-1957), was a celebrated Polish-Jewish novelist, dramatist, and essayist, who wrote about the Jewish experience in the Yiddish language in works including 'The Shtetl' in 1904; he settled principally in the United States, but spent his last years between Israel and Europe, dying in London in 1957. The Ben Uri Minutes (1933-36) show that Asch was invited to lecture on Polish Chasidim at Ben Uri Gallery on 27 July 1933. Epstein's sculpture dates from some 20 years later. Dr. Evelyn Silber's Catalogue Raisonné records that the plaster is Ein Harod, Israel; this is one of six bronzes, one of which was shown at the Leicester Galleries London in the exhibition 'Fame and Promise' in 1955.