1912-14
Gouache
h28 x w28cm

Provenance:
H. S. Ede; J. Rothschild; Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh.

The French sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska arrived in London in 1911 as a young, rebellious artist. Accompanying him was his lover Sophie Brzeska, a Polish woman twenty years his senior and whose name he added to his own. He quickly ingratiated him in the key artistic circles of the time, including Jacob Epstein, the pioneering British sculptor of the time. With clay modelling and direct carving, referencing avant-garde developments in Paris from Picasso to Brancusi, Gaudier-Brzeska developed a striking, visual language. In 1915, he volunteered for the French army and was killed in action, aged twenty-three. In three short years in London he had produced an astonishing body of work establishing him as a leading figure within European avant-garde sculpture (major examples are held in Tate Britain, where he is currently the focus of a dedicated display). A passionate draughtsman, the present two drawings reveal his confident, bold style. ‘Head of a Woman’ originally belonged to H.S. ‘Jim’ Ede, Director of the Tate and found of Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge. Ede collected Gaudier-Brzeska’s work and wrote his biography, Savage Messiah.

Purchased for 12,000 in 2005, the present work has remained in a private collection for nearly 20 years.