Ben Uri Research Unit

for the study and digital recording of the Jewish, Refugee and wide Immigrant contribution to British visual culture since 1900.


Henri Gaudier-Brzeska artist

Henri Gaudier was born in Saint-Jean-de Braye, France, in 1891. In 1911 he moved to London, England, accompanied by the Polish writer Zofia Brzeska, where he devoted himself to sculpture and, as a modernist practitioner, became known as Henri Gaudier-Brzeska.

Born: 1891 St Jean-de-Braye, France

Died: 1915 Neuville-Saint-Vaast, France

Year of Migration to the UK: 1911

Other name/s: Henri Gaudier, Henri Brzeska


Biography

Sculptor and draughtsman Henri Gaudier was born in Saint-Jean-de Braye, near Orléans in France, on 4 October 1891, where his father was a craftsman and carpenter. In 1906 he visited England for the first time, spending two months in London. He returned the following year after winning a national bursary in France for study abroad to train for a career in business. He studied at the Merchant Venturers’ Technical College in Bristol and spent time in Cardiff in late 1908 working for a coal export company but dedicated his spare time to drawing and sketching. He subsequently studied in Nuremberg and Munich and in 1909 moved to Paris where, without any formal training, he began to sculpt. He took on numerous jobs, including working for a publisher, lens manufacturer, and a textile firm, and spent time studying in libraries and museums. In Paris he also met Polish writer Zofia (also known as Sophie) Brzeska, who was 20 years his senior. Amid family disapproval of their relationship, they moved to London, England, in January 1911, and both adopted the surname Gaudier-Brzeska.

In London, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska worked as a clerk to a shipping broker while struggling to establish himself as an artist, facing rejection, isolation and poverty. Through the art critic Haldane Macfall he began to find his place within London’s literary and artistic scene and was invited to contribute drawings to the modernist art magazine Rhythm. In 1912 he attended evening classes in life drawing. He acquired his first studio in January 1913 at 454a Fulham Road, London where Australian Jewish artist Horace Brodzky was among his first visitors. In the same year, Gaudier-Brzeska resigned from his job and devoted himself to his art, sculpting in clay and later, stone. He moved quickly from a modelling style that followed Rodin to a manner of carving recalling Brancusi, using geometrical and radically simplified shapes. His sculptures were predominantly focused on the human head, figures and animals, and closely based on observations from nature. He also produced numerous animal drawings, frequently visiting the Zoological Gardens in Regents Park. By 1913, Gaudier-Brzeska was part of a progressive circle which included T.E. Hulme, Ezra Pound and Jacob Epstein. He developed close friendships with Brodzky and Polish emigre painter, Alfred Wolmark, both of whom he sculpted. In 1913, he exhibited modelled sculptures at the Allied Artists' Salon (AAA) at the Albert Hall, London, including portraits of Wolmark, Brodzky and Macfall. The following year, Alfred Wolmark’s full-length oil portrait of Gaudier-Brzeska was first exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery, London. In 1914, Gaudier-Brzeska was elected to the new exhibiting platform, The London Group and became a member of the Vorticists, publishing an essay on sculpture in the first issue of their journal Blast that July. He moved to East Putney, where he lived and worked in a lock-up under a railway arch. Some of his direct carvings were featured in the first London Group exhibition in March 1914, along with others by Epstein, and his work was included in the groundbreaking Whitechapel Art Gallery show Twentieth Century Art: A Review of Modern Movements two months later. In addition, Gaudier-Brzeska wrote art reviews and acted as chairman of the artists’ committee of the London Salon. He sold little work during this time, however, and received only a handful of small private commissions. In August 1914, soon after the outbreak of the First World War, he enlisted with the French army. From the trenches, he sent his drawings to fellow artist, Edward Wadsworth for inclusion in the London Group exhibition and wrote an essay reflecting on war for the second issue of Blast (Silber, Gaudier-Brzeska: Life and Art, p. 46).

Henri Gaudier-Brzeska died in action in Neuville-Saint-Vaast, France, on 5 June 1915, at the age of 23. His work was shown in the Vorticist exhibition of 1915 which opened five days later. Sophie Brzeska organised a memorial exhibition, held at the Leicester Galleries in London in 1918. Although in his lifetime his work was appreciated by only a small circle based in London, he has since been recognised as a key figure in British modernist art and among the outstanding sculptors of his generation. Despite his brief career, he left behind a formidable body of work in his drawings and sculptures, which proved influential for later sculptors, such as Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and Elizabeth Frink. The bulk of his estate is held at Kettle's Yard, Cambridge, and his work is held in numerous UK collections, including the Ben Uri Collection, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Southampton City Art Gallery, Victoria & Albert Museum, and Tate. His work featured in Ben Uri's retrospective (2004) and the survey exhibition Uproar: The First 50 years of The London Group (2013-14, both with accompanying catalogues).

Related books

  • Sarah MacDougall and Rachel Dickson eds., 'Uproar!': The First 50 Years of The London Group 1913-63 (London: Ben Uri The London Jewish Museum of Art and Lund Humphries, 2013), pp. 82-83
  • H.S. Ede, Savage Messiah: A Biography of the Sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska; with new texts (Leeds: Henry Moore Institute; Cambridge: Kettle's Yard, 2011)
  • Sarah MacDougall and Rachel Dickson eds., Whitechapel at War: Isaac Rosenberg and His Circle (London: Ben Uri Gallery and Museum, 2008), p. 88
  • Patrick Elliott, A New Acquisition for Edinburgh: Henri Gaudier-Brzeska's 'Bust of Alfred Wolmark' and the Casting of the Bronze Edition, The Burlington Magazine Vol. 146, No. 1221, Sculpture (Dec., 2004), pp. 819-822
  • Paul O'Keeffe, Gaudier-Brzeska: An Absolute Case of Genius (London: Allen Lane, 2004)
  • Sarah MacDougall and Rachel Dickson eds., Rediscovering Wolmark: A Pioneer of British Modernism (London: Ben Uri Gallery and Museum, 2004)
  • Evelyn Silber, Gaudier-Brzeska: Life and Art (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1996)
  • 'Gaudier and Brodzky’, Jewish Chronicle, 14 December 1956, p. 25
  • Horace Brodzky, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, 1891-1915 (London: Faber & Faber 1933)
  • H.S. Ede, Savage Messiah (London: William Heinemann, 1931)
  • A Memorial Exhibition of the Work of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Born 1891, Killed in Action 1915 (London: Ernest Brown & Phillips, 1918)
  • Ezra Pound, Gaudier-Brzeska: A Memoir (London: John Lane: The Bodley Head, 1916)

Public collections

Related organisations

  • The London Group (member)
  • Vorticist Group (member)
  • East End Academy (exhibitor)
  • Allied Artists' Association (exhibitor)

Related web links

Selected exhibitions

  • Uproar: The first 50 years of The London Group 1913-1963, Ben Uri Gallery (2013-14)
  • Wild Thing: Epstein, Gaudier-Brzeska, Gill, Royal Academy of Arts, London (2009)
  • Henri Gaudier-Brzeska 1891-1915. Sculpture, Watercolours and Drawings, Mercury Gallery, London (1995)
  • Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Sculptor, Kettle’s Yard Gallery, Cambridge, and touring to Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, York City Art Gallery (1983-84)
  • Henri Gaudier-Brzeska Sculpture, Mercury Gallery, London, and touring to Middlesborough Art Gallery, Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield, Bradford Museum and Art Gallery (1977)
  • Henri Gaudier-Brzeska. Sculpture, Pastels and Drawings, Arts Council Gallery, London, and touring (December 1955 - January 1956)
  • Coronation Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, Ben Uri Gallery (1953)
  • Gaudier-Brzeska: Pen and Ink Drawings, Zwemmer Gallery, London (1936)
  • A Memorial Exhibition of the Work of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Leicester Galleries, London (1918)
  • The Modern Movement in Art, Royal Birmingham Society of Artists (1917)
  • Allied Artists Association, Grafton Galleries, London (1916)
  • Vorticists exhibition, Doré Gallery, 35 New Bond Street, London (June 1915)
  • London Group's Second Exhibition, Goupil Gallery, London (March 1915)
  • Twentieth Century Art; A Review of Modern Movements, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (1914)
  • London Group's First Exhibition, Goupil Gallery, London (March 1914)
  • International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, Grosvenor Gallery, London (1913)
  • Coronation Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, Ben Uri Art Society, London (1953)
  Henri Gaudier-Brzeska
   
Ben Uri collection

Henri Gaudier-Brzeska in the Ben Uri collection

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Henri Gaudier-Brzeska]

Ben Uri library

Publications related to [Henri Gaudier-Brzeska] in the Ben Uri Library