Henri Gaudier-Brzeska

Red Stone Dancer

c.1913

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In Tate Britain

Spotlights

Free
Artist
Henri Gaudier-Brzeska 1891–1915
Medium
Red Mansfield stone
Dimensions
Object: 432 × 229 × 229 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Presented by C. Frank Stoop through the Contemporary Art Society 1930
Reference
N04515

Display caption

Gaudier-Brzeska gathered and incorporated sculptural ideas from many different cultures in his work. At the British Museum he looked at the ancient Greek and Assyrian rooms and the Ethnographical Gallery in the upper floor. This contained artworks taken – sometimes forcibly – from indigenous peoples around the world. In Red Stone Dancer Gaudier-Brzeska draws on these sources to create his own sculptural language, with geometrical elements such as the triangle and circle imprinted on its face and breast. Its stance suggests a twisting movement compressed into a moment of stillness.

Gallery label, October 2020

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Catalogue entry

N04515 RED STONE DANCER c. 1913
 
Inscr. ‘H G B’ (in monogram) at the back of the base.
Red Mansfield stone, polished and waxed, 17×9×9 (43×23×23).
Presented by C. Frank Stoop through the Contemporary Art Society 1930.
Coll: As for No.4514.
Exh: Grafton Group, Alpine Club Gallery, January 1914 (50); London Group, March 1915 (113); Twentieth Century Art, Whitechapel Art Gallery, May 1914 (113); Vorticist Exhibition, Doré Galleries, June 1915 (c); Leicester Galleries, May–June 1918 (72); Temple Newsam, Leeds, June–August 1943 (75); Orléans, March–April 1956 (14, repr.); Arts Council, 1956–7 (24).
Lit: Pound, 1916, pp.161, 164, repr. pls.5 and 6; Ede, 1930, p.177, repr. pl.38; Gaudier in Ede, 1930, pp.198–9.

Probably carved late in 1913, though Gaudier dated it 1914. According to Ede, Gaudier likened this work to Ezra Pound's poems, while Pound relates the carving to certain drawings such as those reproduced as his pl.25 and Ede, 1931, pls.52 and 56.

Published in:
Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, I

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