Henri Gaudier-Brzeska
Henri Gaudier-Brzeska (born October 4, 1891 in Saint-Jean-de-Braye , † June 5, 1915 in Neuville-Saint-Vaast ) was a French sculptor and co-founder of Vorticism .
Henri Gaudier was born near Orléans . In 1910 he moved to London to settle down as a freelance artist, although he had not received any relevant training. In London he made the acquaintance of Sophie Brzeska , a Polish writer, whose surname he took, although the two never married.
Through his acquaintance with Wyndham Lewis and Ezra Pound , Gaudier-Brzeska became one of the founding members of Vorticism . In his sculpture he was initially influenced by Auguste Rodin , but also primitive sculpture, which he saw in the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum . His own style was characterized by the fact that he rejected finished, smooth sculptures such as those made by artists based on the example of antiquity. His works were direct, dynamic and showed the traces of the artistic work on the object.
With the outbreak of World War I, Gaudier-Brzeska enlisted in the French Army. For his commitment he received a medal of bravery before he perished in Neuville St. Vaast in 1915.
After his death, his partner fell mentally deranged and finally died in an institution in 1925. Jim Ede acquired numerous works, writings and letters from her estate, which became the basis of his book Savage Messiah , published in 1931 . This book was the inspiration for Ken Russell 's film of the same name about Gaudier-Brzeska in 1972 .
Although Gaudier-Brzeska could only work as an artist for four years, his sculptural work influenced English and French art of the 20th century. Works by him can be seen today in the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris and in the Musée des Beaux Arts Orléans as well as in the Tate Gallery in London.
literature
- Harold S. Ede: Savage Messiah. A biography of the sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska . Outerbridge & Lazard, New York 1971, ISBN 0-900406-16-X , (edition reprinted in London 1931).
- Peter Groth: Vorticism in literature, art and science. Studies on the movement of the "Men of 1914". Ezra Pound , Wyndham Lewis , Gaudier-Brzeska, TS Eliot et al. Buske, Hamburg 1971, ISBN 3-87118-088-2 , (also dissertation, University of Hamburg 1972).
- Ezra Pound: Henri Gaudier-Brzeska . In: Ezra Pound: About Contemporaries . Verlag Die Arche, Zurich 1959, ( Horizont Collection ), pp. 21–26.
- Lisa Tickner : Now and Then: The Hieratic Head of Ezra Pound , in: Oxford Art Journal, Volume 16, Issue 2, 1993, pp. 55-61
Web links
- Literature by and about Henri Gaudier-Brzeska in the catalog of the German National Library
- The Tate Gallery via Gaudier-Brzeska
- Prestel artist lexicon on Gaudier-Brzeska
- The color of tears: the First World War from the perspective of painters
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Gaudier-Brzeska, Henri |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French sculptor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 4, 1891 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Saint-Jean-de-Braye |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 5, 1915 |
| Place of death | Neuville-Saint-Vaast |