‘Picture This #17′ – Ezra Pound by Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Kettle’s Yard

gaudier pound Credit Kettle's yard

Jim Ede, creator of Kettle’s Yard, acquired the estate of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska after his death and Kettle’s Yard now contains one of the largest collections of his work.

What is it?

Drawing in brush and ink on paper, 1914

Gaudier befriended and collaborated with many leading literary and artistic figures. Perhaps the most prominent of them was the American poet Ezra Pound. Based in London from 1908 to 1924, Pound first met Gaudier in July 1913 at an exhibition at the Royal Albert Hall. His reputation derived mainly from his involvement in Imagism, a literary movement inspired by classical Chinese and Japanese poetry - stressing clarity, precision and economy of language.

Pound and Gaudier worked closely together at the creation of a Vorticist style, with both playing an important role in the publication of the journal Blast. Gaudier made numerous drawings of Pound in preparation for a marble portrait commissioned by the poet (Hieratic Head of Ezra Pound). In this brush and ink portrait Pound’s unmistakable features are outlined in a few, brisk strokes, with the spectacles and pointed beard humorously accentuated. The drawing also shows a fascination with the expressive potential and gestural energy of the Chinese ideogram (a graphic representation of an idea or concept), which Gaudier shared with the poet. Pound later recalled that Gaudier could learn to read complex ideograms in a few minutes.

Following the sculptor’s premature death, in 1916 Pound published a deeply felt tribute, Gaudier-Brzeska: A Memoir. A letter of the period fully expresses the poet’s sorrow: ’Gaudier-Brzeska has been killed... and we have lost the best of our sculptors and the most promising. The arts will incur no worse loss in the war than this is.’

About Henri Gaudier-Brzeska

Henri Gaudier-Brzeska was a pioneer of avant-garde sculpture. His career was short and dazzling. It started with his arrival in London from Paris in January 1911 and ended with his untimely death in action in June 1915, aged just 23. In spite of his young age and relative poverty, in this short period Gaudier created a sizable and ground-breaking body of work. The highpoint of Gaudier’s work were arguably the sculptures and drawings he created in his final months in London, while associated with Vorticism.

Jim Ede, creator of Kettle’s Yard, acquired the estate of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska after his death and Kettle’s Yard now contains one of the largest collections of his work.

Find out more

More about Kettle’s Yard here: http://www.kettlesyard.co.uk/index.php

You can listen to talks about Gaudier and others in the collection at Kettle’s Yard here: http://www.kettlesyard.co.uk/live/

You can explore the whole collection and the virtual tour online here: http://www.kettlesyard.co.uk/house/collection.html