Henri Gaudier-Brzeska
Biography of Primitivist Sculptor, Subject
of Savage Messiah Film.
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Henri Gaudier-Brzeska
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Henri Gaudier-Brzeska (1891-1915)Contents • Biography |
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Now seen as one of the greatest sculptors of his generation, the French artist Henri Gaudier-Brzeska is famous for his primitive, rough hewn, style of direct carving. Self-taught in the art of sculpture, he came to London in 1911, at the age of 20, where he was influenced by the Bohemian artist Jacob Epstein (1880-1959), the champion of primitivism. Over the next four years Gaudier-Brzeska developed his signature style of plastic art - a unique fusion of organic and Cubist forms, executed with an expressionist roughness. His revolutionary new approach seems all the more extraordinary, given his extreme youth, lack of training and scarce resources. He became a friend of the painter Percy Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957), and other leading artistic figures, including the poet Ezra Pound (1885-1972), and his work was shown in several exhibitions of avant-garde art. Along with Lewis, he was also a signatory of the June 1914 manifesto of the Vorticism movement: other founder members included, Epstein, the figurative painter William Roberts (1895-1980), the abstract artists Edward Wadsworth (1889-1949), David Bomberg (1890-1957) and Jessica Dismorr (1885-1939). He was also involved in book illustration and produced a number of exceptional animal drawings. Gaudier-Brzeska was killed in action on the Western Front, in 1915. Although his career lasted a mere four years, and his work was appreciated during his lifetime only by a small circle, he is now seen as a significant influence on other 20th century sculptors, and something of an unfulfilled genius. After his death he was the subject of a biography by H.S. (Jim) Ede, called Savage Messiah, which was turned into a cult film in 1972 by the director Ken Russell. |
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Early Life: Becomes a Sculptor Born Henri Gaudier in Saint-Jean-de-Braye near the city of Orleans, before later moving to Paris, he seems to have received very little formal training in drawing, or any other type of fine art, prior to his decision in 1910 to take up sculpture - a decision said to have been inspired by his father, who was a carpenter and wood carver. The most we know is that he began to study art the year before, while working as a textile engineer in Paris. At any rate, he managed to accumulate knowledge of Greek sculpture and also Renaissance sculpture, along with a deep respect for the art of Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), the greatest of all 19th century sculptors. Also in 1910, while at the Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevieve, he met Sophie Brzeska, a Polish writer twenty years older than him, with whom he formed an intensely close relationship, sharing surnames in the process. In January 1911 they moved to London, a city Gaudier had visited twice before, in 1906 and 1908, and lived for several months in extreme poverty. Initially, he had few contacts, little money for sculptural materials, and almost no knowledge of current developments in sculpture. |
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Vorticism Movement and Other Influences Not long after settling in London, Gaudier-Brzeska joined the Vorticism movement of Ezra Pound and Percy Wyndham Lewis, a short-lived offshoot of Cubism and Futurism. This, and the publication of some of his drawings in the art magazine Rhythm, in 1912, brought him into contact with the two individuals who were to be extremely influential on his aesthetics and technique: the poet Ezra Pound and the sculptor Jacob Epstein. Pound introduced him to Chinese art, and to the philosophical form of oriental drawing known as calligraphy. He also bought a number of Gaudier-Brzeska's carvings and commissioned a special portrait, for which he bought the artist a block of marble. Epstein - himself something of an enfant terrible on account of his rejection of High Classical Greek sculpture in favour of African sculpture, the primitivism of tribal art and Assyrian-style Mesopotamian art - urged Gaudier-Brzeska to reject the academic conventions of stone sculpture and follow a more innovative direction. At the same time, his contacts with other Vorticists engendered a respect for Cubism and its faceted forms. Later, his work was illustrated in the Vorticist magazine Blast. Gaudier-Brzeska's Style of Sculpture As a result of Epstein's influence, Gaudier-Brzeska determined to forsake the highly finished, sculpture of ancient Greece and embrace a more expressive carving technique. He even dropped his admiration for the rough modelling methods of Rodin, and instead began to take an interest in Japanese art, as well as West African artifacts and Oceanic art, studying works at the Victoria & Albert Museum, the British Museum and elsewhere. In his actual sculpting, Gaudier-Brzeska had the unerring ability to imply, with just a few deft strokes, the fundamental nature of a subject, and with extraordinary speed he developed a personal style of abstract sculpture in which shapes are pared down to essentials in a manner reminiscent of Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957) - see The Kiss (1908) Kunsthalle, Hamburg - Jacques Lipchitz (1891-1973) - see Man with a Guitar (1915) MOMA, New York - and Andre Derain (1880-1954) - see his Crouching Figure (1907, Museum of Modern Art, Vienna), and his Standing Nude (1907, Musee National d'Art Moderne, Paris). In 1913, Gaudier-Brzeska carved his masterpiece Red Stone Dancer (Tate Collection, London) - whose maelstrom of arms and hands about a triangular face sets geometrical forms against tensed curves - followed in 1914 by the marble sculpture Torso (Tate Collection, London), and by Birds Erect (MOMA, New York), composed of forms that suggest their organic source but are dramatized by Cubist fragments. In England, only his friend Epstein was creating sculpture as advanced as this. Relationship With Sophie Brzeska As described in Ede's book Savage Messiah, Gaudier met the Polish novelist Sophie Brzeska in Paris, when he was only 18, and she was nearly 40. Despite their symbiotic existence, she remained essentially a companion, rather than a lover, dismissing his romantic advances and fobbing him off with prostitutes. Nonetheless, there is no doubting their emotional closeness - intensified by the mental instability from which they both suffered - and his death caused her enormous distress. She died in an asylum, ten years later. In Autumn 1914, following the outbreak of the Great War, Gaudier-Brzeska returned to France and joined the French Army. In Spring 1915, he participated in the Allied Artists' Association Exhibition, and in June of the same year he exhibited various works in the Vorticist Exhibition at the Dore Gallery in London, the same month that he died in the trenches at Neuville-St.-Vaast, near Arras. He was 23 years old. Despite the brevity of his career, Gaudier-Brzeska left behind a small oeuvre that is paradigmatic of an intense primitivism, and he has had an amazingly strong influence on subsequent generations of English sculptors, including the great Henry Moore (1898-1986) and Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975), to name but two. (Note: Gaudier is generally regarded as an English sculptor, as he was active only in England.) Admired also in France and America, his work can be seen in several of the best art museums in the world, including the Tate Gallery, London; the Musee National d'Art Moderne, Paris; the Musee des Beaux Arts, Orleans; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. See also: History of Sculpture (200,000 BCE - present). |
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