Garden Ornament

Location

Country: Singapore
City: Singapore
Place: British High Commission

In the spring of 1914, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska received a commission through the Omega Workshops to carve two stone vases or garden ornaments for General Sir Ian and Lady Hamilton at 1 Hyde Park Gardens, London. Gaudier-Brezska produced a plaster model but this was only cast in bronze in the 1960s, as he left Britain to fight in the French army and died in action. Garden Ornament is composed of three pairs of arm-like forms holding a bowl, with crude human faces inscribed into the outer planes of the arms. Its formal source can be traced to wooden stools of the Tonga tribe in North-West Zimbabwe. Gaudier-Brezska’s interest in African material cultures associates him with the ‘Primitivist’ movement of the turn of the twentieth century.

Born in Belgium and an immigrant to France, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska was one of the earliest abstract sculptors and instrumental in introducing modern art to England during the early years of the 20th century. In 1910 he met Sophie Brzeska, and the couple combined their last names. Later that year they moved to London, where the poet Ezra Pound became the young sculptor’s patron and supporter. Just before World War I, Gaudier-Brzeska joined Wyndham Lewis’s Vorticist movement, which advocated abstraction and an embrace of the machines and energy of modern life. Gaudier-Brzeska’s promising career was cut short when he was killed in combat in World War I.

Places

Subjects

abstract, garden

Materials & Techniques

bronze, sculpture (as object name), bronze sculpture

Artist

Henri Gaudier-Brzeska (1891 - 1915)

Title

Garden Ornament

Edition

From an edition of 9

Date

conceived 1914, cast 1960s

Medium

Bronze sculpture

Dimensions

height: 34.50 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Mercury Gallery, January 1980

GAC number

14902