Kettle’s Yard, University of Cambridge photo: Paul Allitt

Artists in focus: Henri Gaudier-Brzeska

Sat 14 January 2012 - Sun 1 April 2012

Kettle's Yard House and Gallery

Selected works from the collection will be on show in the exhibition gallery during the closure of the house extension. In a series of small, focussed displays familiar works will be presented in new ways and with contextual material from the archive and the reserve collection that is not normally available to the public.

Henri Gaudier-Brzeska’s career as a sculptor was regrettably short. Born in France in 1891, he was killed in action in 1915, aged just 23. Yet in the three and a half years preceding his departure for the trenches he managed to create a remarkable and innovative body of work.

Gaudier moved to London from Paris in early 1911. There he worked alongside prominent figures such as the poet Ezra Pound, the sculptor Jacob Epstein, the painter Wyndham Lewis and the philosopher T.E. Hulme. With them, in 1914, he created Vorticism, Britain’s first avant-garde movement. Through a selection of sculptures and related drawings drawn from the permanent collection, this display explores Gaudier’s Vorticist work, arguably his most significant contribution to the development of modern sculpture.

Cost: free