Henri Gaudier-Brzeska

Monkeys

1914, cast c.1965

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Not on display

Artist: Henri Gaudier-Brzeska 1891–1915
Medium: Stone
Dimensions: Object: 178 × 159 × 95 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Presented by Kettle's Yard Collection Cambridge 1966
Reference: T00843

Display caption

Gaudier-Brzeska made many sculptures and drawings of animals. In 1914 he carved a group of monkeys in sandstone. The work shown here is a cast of this in artificial stone. Gaudier drew widely from a variety of sources, including the art of Polynesia and Africa. Like his fellow sculptor Epstein, he greatly admired Brancusi, whose purity of form, use of ovals and simplified depiction of features seem to have influenced this piece. Gaudier's interest in animals was shared by a number of early modern artists, who turned away from human subjects in search of something purer, more innocent and more elemental.

Gallery label, September 2004

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Catalogue entry

Henri Gaudier-Brzeska 1891–1915

T00843 Monkeys 1914

Not inscribed.
Artificial stone, 7 x 6¼ x 3¾ (18 x15.5 x 9.5).
Presented by the Kettle’s Yard Collection, Cambridge 1966.

No. 2 in an edition of twelve casts made by H. S. Ede from the original sandstone in the Kettle’s Yard Collection. This is the ‘Three Monkeys’, sandstone, in Ede’s Supplementary List of 1930.

Published in The Tate Gallery Report 1966–1967, London 1967.