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Artist or Maker: Henri Gaudier-Brzeska (1891-1915)

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Description: Ornamental Mask
numbered '3/8' (on the base)
bronze with a dark brown and dark red patina
30 in. (76.2 cm.) high
Conceived in 1912 and cast in 1969-70.

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Provenance: Private collection, Geneva.
Anonymous sale, Sotheby's, London, 1 October 1997, lot 204.

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Exhibited: London, Leicester Galleries, A Memorial Exhibition of the Work of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, May - June 1918, no. 259, another cast exhibited.
London, Mercury Gallery, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska 1891-1915: Sculpture, Watercolours and Drawings, November - December 1995, no. 12, another cast exhibited.

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Published: H. Macfall, The Book of Lovat, London, 1923, p. 53.
H.S. Ede, A Life of Gaudier-Brzeska, London, 1930, pp. 90, 194-5.
H. Brodsky, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, London, 1932, p. 40, plaster illustrated opposite p. 124.
R. Cole, Burning to Speak: The Life and Art of Henry Gaudier-Brzeska, Oxford, 1978, no. 4, p. 51, another cast illustrated.
Exhibition catalogue, Catalogue of Twentieth Century Sculpture, Belfast, Ulster Museum, 1988, pp. 31-3, another cast illustrated.
Exhibition catalogue, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, London, Mercury Gallery, 1995, no. 12.
R. Cole, Gaudier-Brzeska: Artist and Myth, Bristol, 1995, pl. VII, plaster illustrated.
E. Silber, Gaudier-Brzeska: Life and Art, London, 1996, p. 257, no. 31, another cast illustrated pl. 28.

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Notes: Gaudier's original painted and gilded plaster was commissioned in 1912. The 6 bronze casts plus 1 hors de commerce of which this is one, were cast by Fiorini in 1969-70.

The painted plaster from which these were made is in the collection of the Petit Palais, Geneva. 'The relief, together with other masks and tiles, was originally commissioned by the artist and theatre designer Claud Lovat Fraser who paid £5 for its casting in plaster by Parlanti. The original plaster was painted in crude, bright colours and gilded on parts of the face. Referring to his experiments at the time Gaudier wrote, 'Just as simple and bright as can be, I use the optic mixing of colours - putting them in pure pigments side by side'. The modelling of the mask was obviously based on his study of the primitive carvings and masks in the British Museum, where he was spending a great deal of his time drawing. The sculpture has little relationship, except for the surface decoration, with other work of the period, but was part of an overall search for a sculptural style' (see R. Cole, loc. cit., p. 51.) The plaster was exhibited at the Memorial Exhibition, 1918, and the Scottish National Gallery, 1972.

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