Great! – I have been awarded £3000 from Arts Council of Wales to help me with research, investigating, travelling in order to find out more about Henri Gaudier-Brzeska’s time in Cardiff in 1909 up to his sudden death in France in June 1915. SO you’ll find me reading, drawing, sculpting and walking maybe in Roath or Victoria Park Cardiff or the National Museum Cardiff where the young Henri seemed to come to the realisation that he would be an artist…. Later that year 1909 he would be found in the Biblioteque Genevieve in Paris researching the recent discoveries in prehistoric cave art or ancient greek sculpture and falling in soul-mates with Sophie Brzeska, a polish emigree in Paris. I’ll also get to the Garman Ryan collection in Walsall New Art Centre and to Kettles Yard in Cambridge, founded by Jim Ede, also from near Cardiff, who bought many of Gaudier’s best works from Sophie Brzeska’s estate. Perhaps I’ll get as far as Orleans, Henri’s home town in France although I don’t think there’s much of his work in France. Foreigners have always invigorated British Art (see Modern British Sculpture at the RA?)and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska ushered in that great period of British art, particularly sculpture, lasting from the 1910s up to the 60s and beyond. His life and thought and his few writings on sculpture seem to be relevant today thanks to his insight into how we perceive and interpret the abstract qualities of form and where our making of art comes from. Thank you Henri for helping me with my sculpture!
