Henri Gaudier-Brzeska (1891-1915)
Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's… Read more
Henri Gaudier-Brzeska (1891-1915)

Wrestlers

Details
Henri Gaudier-Brzeska (1891-1915)
Wrestlers
signed with monogram 'HGB' (lower centre)
herculite relief
28 5/8 x 35 7/8 in. (72 x 91 cm.)
Carved in plaster relief in 1914; cast in herculite resin in an edition of 9 on behalf of H.S (Jim) Ede by John W. Mills in June 1965.
Provenance
H.S. Ede.
with Colnaghi, London.
with Browse & Darby, on behalf of Gillian Jason Gallery, where purchased by Dr Jeffrey Sherwin.
Literature
E. Pound, Gaudier-Brzeska: A Memoir, London, 1916, p. 130, no. 32, another cast illustrated.
H.S. Ede, A Life of Gaudier-Brzeska, London, 1930, p. 200, another cast illustrated.
H. Brodzky, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, London, 1932, pp. 31-32, another cast illustrated.
M. Levy (intro.), Gaudier-Brzeska Drawings and Sculpture, London, 1965, p. 30, no. 82, pl. 82, another cast illustrated.
R. Cole, Burning to Speak: The Life and Art of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Oxford, 1978, p. 93, no. 42, another cast illustrated.
F. Koslow, The Evolution of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska’s Boston Wrestlers Relief, Bulletin of Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1981, pp. 38-49, another cast illustrated.
J. Lewison (ed.), exhibition catalogue, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, sculptor 1891-1915, Cambridge, Kettles Yard, 1983, pp. 54-55, no. 78, another cast illustrated.
E. Silber, Gaudier-Brzeska, Life and Art: With a Catalogue Raisonné of the Sculpture, London, 1996, pp. 266, 300, no. 66, pl. 87, another cast illustrated.
Lord Harewood (intro.), exhibition catalogue, The Modern Show: British Art from Private Collections 1908-1958, Leeds, Harewood House, 2006, p. 20, illustrated.
S. Levy and T. Pirsig-Marshall (ed.), exhibition catalogue, British Surrealism in Context: A Collectors Eye, Leeds, City Art Gallery, 2009, pp. 79-81, 152, illustrated.
Exhibition catalogue, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Paris, Centre Pompidou, 2009, pp. 190-191, no. 69, another cast illustrated.
Exhibited
London, Leicester Galleries, A Memorial Exhibition of the Work of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, May - June 1918, no. 69.
London, Faber & Faber, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska 1891-1915, 1933, no. 69, another cast exhibited.
Leeds, Temple Newsam, Roy de Maistre and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, June – August 1943, no. 78, another cast exhibited.
Leeds, City Art Gallery, British Surrealism in Context: A Collectors Eye, July – November 2009, exhibition not numbered.
Cambridge, Kettles Yard, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, sculptor 1891-1915, October – November 1983, no. 78, another cast exhibited: this exhibition travelled to Bristol, City Museum and Art Gallery, November 1983 – January 1984; and York, City Art Gallery, January – February 1984.
Leeds, Harewood House, The Modern Show: British Art from Private Collections 1908-1958, 2006, exhibition not numbered.
Paris, Centre Pompidou, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, June – September 2009, no. 69, another cast exhibited: this exhibition travelled to Orléans, Musée des Beaux Arts, October 2009 – January 2010.
Special notice

Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.

Lot Essay


The subject of the Wrestlers was inspired by Gaudier's visit to the London Wrestling Club off Fleet Street where he made numerous drawings of the athletes 'large shoulders, taut enormous necks like bulls, small in build, firm thighs, slender ankles, feet as sensitive as hands and not tall but they fight with a fantastic vivacity and spirit' (www.tate.org.uk). Roger Cole writes, 'The relief was the culmination of a large number of drawings on this subject which gradually become more simplified. The treatment is essentially two-dimensional and is concerned to establish a rhythmic interrelation of shapes. The flat treatment of the hands, which is a further progression from earlier expressions of the same form, serve to accentuate the flow of lines in the two figures. There is little development of style in the design of the two heads, in comparison with the Embracers, but what is quite evident is that the proportion and natural physical organistion of the figure has been abandoned entirely in favour of the direct expression of the interralationships of the subject. Consequently this work established a further step towards an original means of expression, in which the drawing and sculpture were one'. (R. Cole, loc. cit.)
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