Henri Gaudier-Brzeska (4 October 1891 – 5 June 1915)[1] was a French sculptor who developed a rough hewn, primitive style of direct carving. Events 610 - Heraclius arrives by ship from Africa at Constantinople, overthrows Byzantine Emperor Phocas Year 1891 ( MDCCCXCI) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Events 70 - Titus and his Roman Legions breach the middle wall of Jerusalem in the Siege of Jerusalem Year 1915 ( MCMXV) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year
Henri Gaudier was born in St. Jean de Braye near Orléans. This article is about the French city of Orléans for other meanings see Orleans (disambiguation. In 1910 he moved to London to become an artist, even though he had no formal training. With him came Sophie Brzeska, a Polish writer over twice his age whom he had met at the Bibliotheque St. Poland (Polska officially the Republic of Poland Genevieve in Paris, and with whom he began an intense symbiotic relationship, annexing her surname although they never married. During this time his conflicting attitudes towards art are exemplified in what he wrote to Dr. Uhlmayr, with whom he had lived the previous year:[1]
| “ | When I face the beauty of nature, I am no longer sensitive to art, but in the town I appreciate its myriad benefits—the more I go into the woods and the fields the more distrustful I become of art and wish all civilization to the devil; the more I wander about amidst filth and sweat the better I understand art and love it; the desire for it becomes my crying need. | ” |
He resolved these reservations by taking up sculpture, having been inspired by his proud carpenter father. A carpenter (builder is a skilled craftsman who performs carpentry - a wide range of Woodworking that includes constructing buildings, Once in England Gaudier-Brzeska fell in with the Vorticism movement of Ezra Pound and Wyndham Lewis, becoming a founding member of the London Group. Vorticism was a short lived British Art movement of the early 20th century Ezra Weston Loomis Pound ( Hailey, Idaho Territory, United States October 30 1885 – Venice, Italy November 1 1972 was an American Expatriate Percy Wyndham Lewis ( November 18, 1882 &ndash March 7, 1957) was an English painter and Author (he dropped The London Group is an Artists ' exhibiting society based in London England founded in 1913 when the Camden Town Group came together with the English Vorticists He advocated that sculpture should leave behind the highly finished, polished style of ancient Greece and embrace a more earthy direct carving, in which the tool marks are left visible on the final work as a fingerprint of the artist. From his original admiration for the work of Rodin, he also drew from primitive ethnic sculpture arriving at the Victoria and Albert Museum and British Museum. Auguste Rodin (born François-Auguste-René Rodin; November 12 1840–November 17 1917 was a French artist most famous as a sculptor. The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design housing a permanent collection The British Museum is a Museum of human history and culture in London. His drawings also show the influence of Cubism. Cubism was a 20th century Avant-garde Art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European
In 1913 he assisted with the illustrations of Haldane Macfall's book The Splendid Wayfaring along with Claud Lovat Fraser and Edward Gordon Craig. Claud Lovat Fraser ( May 15, 1890 London – June 18, 1921, Dymchurch) was an English Artist designer and author Edward Gordon Craig ( 16 January 1872 – 29 July 1966) sometimes known as Gordon Craig was a English modernist Theatre
Gaudier-Brzeska was influenced by the Chinese calligraphy and poetry which he discovered at the "Ezuversity", Ezra Pound's unofficial locus of teaching. Pound's interaction with Ernest Fenollosa's work on the Chinese brought the young sculptor to the galleries of Eastern art, where he studied the ideogram and applied it to his art. Ernest Francisco Fenollosa (February 18 1853 – September 21 1908 was an American professor of Philosophy and Political economy at Tokyo Imperial University Gaudier-Brzeska had the ability to imply, with a few deft strokes, the being of a subject.
At the start of the First World War, Gaudier-Brzeska enlisted with the French army. World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All He appears to have fought with little regard for his own safety, receiving a decoration for bravery before being killed in the trenches at Neuville-St.-Vaast. Neuville-Saint-Vaast is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais département in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France.
Following his death Sophie Brzeska became distraught, eventually dying in an asylum in 1925. Year 1925 ( MCMXXV) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Jim Ede bought a sizeable portion of Gaudier-Brzeska's work from Sophie Brzeska's estate including numerous letters sent between Henri and Sophie. Harold Stanley Ede ( 7 April 1895 – 15 March 1990) also known as ' Jim' Ede, was a British collector of art and friend Ede used these as the basis for his book Savage Messiah on life and work of Gaudier-Brzeska, which in turn became the basis of Ken Russell's film of the same name. Henry Kenneth Alfred Russell, known as Ken Russell (born 3 July 1927 is an English Film director. Savage Messiah is a 1972 Biographical film of the life of French Sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, made by Russ-Arts
Despite the fact that he had only four years to develop his art, Gaudier-Brzeska has had a surprisingly strong influence on 20th-century modernist sculpture in England and France. His work can be seen at the Tate Gallery, Kettle's Yard, the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris and the Musée des Beaux Arts Orléans. Tate is the United Kingdom 's national museum of British and Modern Art and is a network of four art galleries in England: Tate Britain (opened in Kettle's Yard is an Art gallery and house in Cambridge, England. Centre Georges Pompidou (constructed 1971–1977 and known as the Pompidou Centre in English) is a complex in the Beaubourg area of the 4th arrondissement
References
- Pound, Ezra, Gaudier-Brzeska: A Memoir (London: John Lane, 1916; rpt. New York: New Directions, 1970 ISBN 0-8112-0527-4)—memoir of Pound's time with Gaudier-Brzeska, including letters and photos of sculpture
- "We the Moderns": Gaudier-Brzeska and the Birth of Modern Sculpture (Cambridge: Kettle's Yard, 2007 ISBN 1-90-4561-225)—catalogue of an exhibition of the same name
External links
- The Tate Collection
- Background to the film Savage Messiah
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