Henri Alphonse Séraphin Marie Gaudier-Brzeska
Born 4 October 1891
Died 5 June 1915
Active: 1907 - 1915
Country of birth and death: France
Sculptor
Born at Vomimbert, St Jean-de-Braye, near Orléans, France. He was the only son of Germain Gaudier (1864–1934), a joiner and carpenter. Between 1907-9 Gaudier-Brzeska held a scholarship at the Merchant Venturers' Technical College, Bristol. He then worked for a coal exporter, Fifoot, Ching & Co., in Cardiff, afterwards travelling to Nuremberg and Munich. At this time he decided to become an artist but his first efforts as a magazine illustrator were unsuccessful.
Back in France from 1909, he met Sophie Suzanne Brzeska (1871–1925) who became his lifelong companion in May 1910. They moved to London in January 1911, and adopted the surname Gaudier-Brzeska also styling themselves brother and sister. Henri was employed between March 1911-July 1913 as a foreign-language clerk with Wulfsberg & Co., a London-based timber importer. He studied art in his spare time and began sculpting in clay and then stone in 1912. Gaudier-Brzeska quickly won recognition, particularly as a result of exhibiting works at the London Salon in 1913. Through the support of the poet, Ezra Pound, and a number of artists, Gaudier-Brzeska was elected to the London Group in February 1914 and became chairman of the artists' committee for the 1914 London Salon. However he had yet to achieve financial success as an artist.
Through his friendship with Pound, Gaudier-Brzeska was closely identified with Vorticism. He was one of the signatories of the vorticist manifesto and contributed two seminal articles, ‘Vortex—Gaudier-Brzeska’, to the 1914 and 1915 issues of the journal 'Blast'. In September 1914 Gaudier-Brzeska returned to France and enlisted as a private in the 129th regiment of the French army, he was promoted twice. On 5 June 1915 he was killed by a single bullet through the head at Neuville-St Vaast in Artois and was buried in the military cemetery. Sophie Brzeska inherited his work by an inter vivos gift and on her death in 1925, it was valued at £545.
Works
Dates are usually the year a work was exhibited so may differ from date of production.
New entries have been made each time a work was exhibited. Click here for more information.
Plaster Cast of Torso in Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington
A Workman fallen from a scaffolding
A Carving in bone (the handle of a toothbrush)
Designed A Tray
The Miracle
1913 (Presumed)
£40
Locations
Address 454A Fulham Road London England | View on map
1913 - 1914
Studio located at Arch 25, Winthorpe Road Putney London England | View on map
1914
(See Silber ODNB, 2004)
Exhibitions, Meetings, Awards and other Events
Exhibited at The Spring Exhibition of The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers (London), 1913
Multiple works
Exhibited at The Spring Exhibition of The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers (Twentieth London Exhibition), 1916
'Nude'
Exhibited at An Exhibition of Water-Colours and Drawings by a Group of Artists Serving with His Majesty's Forces, including Recent Sculpture by Jacob Epstein (Leceister Galleries), 1917
Multiple works
Exhibited at A Memorial Exhibition of the Work of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, (Leicester Galleries), 1918
Multiple works
Exhibited at Exhibition of the Bristol Academy, Annual Spring Exhibition for the Promotion of the Fine Arts, The Sixty-Eighth, 1913
1913
Exhibited at London Group Exhibition, 1914-1939
1914 - 1915
Exhibited twice, 5 works then works, a posthumous retrospective was held in 1928
Exhibited at Festival of Britain, London: Ten Decades, a Review of British Taste, 1851-1951, 1951
1951
Gaudier-Brzeska's 'Red Stone Dancer' in alabaster was lent by the Tate Gallery.
Sources
A Memorial Exhibition of the Work of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska
1918
Ernest Brown & Phillips Ltd., The Leicester Galleries. An index of 1422 catalogues of exhibitions of European Modern Art and 20th Century British Art, held between 1902 and 1977
http://www.ernestbrownandphillips.ltd.uk (accessed 17 July 2019)
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
2004
Evelyn Silber, ‘Brzeska, Henri Alphonse Séraphin Marie Gaudier- (1891–1915)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 2007 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/40715, accessed 1 Nov 2010]
The London Group 1913-1939: The artists and their works
1995
p. 81-2
Citing this record
'Henri Alphonse Séraphin Marie Gaudier-Brzeska', Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951, University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII, online database 2011 [http://sculpture.gla.ac.uk/view/person.php?id=msib1_1219080615, accessed 28 Sep 2023]
