- Artist
- Henri Gaudier-Brzeska 1891–1915
- Medium
- Bronze
- Dimensions
- Object: 318 × 603 × 279 mm
- Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Purchased 1964
- Reference
- T00658
Online caption
Henri Gaudier-Brzeska was a self-taught artist who moved to London from France in 1910. He was inspired to create this sculpture after seeing a bird eating a fish in Hyde Park, London. The energy in the shape of Bird Swallowing a Fish combines the artist’s interests in nature and the machine age. The two figures are locked together as one writhing figure, almost indistinguishable from one another. However, although the fish may be inches from death, it could equally be choking the bird. Gaudier-Brzeska was a member of Wyndham Lewis’s vorticist art group and a founding member of the London Group.
Catalogue entry
Henri Gaudier-Brzeska 1891–1915
T00658 Bird Swallowing a Fish c. 1913–14, cast 1964
Not inscribed.
Bronze, 12½ x 23¾ x 11 (32 x 60 x 28).
Purchased from H. S. Ede (Grant-in-Aid) 1964.
Lit: H. S. Ede, A Life of Gaudier-Brzeska, 1930, p. 205, repr. pi. 42, facing p. 180, from a photograph showing the sculptor standing behind the plaster.
H. S. Ede wrote (letter, 17 June 1964) : ‘Gaudier made a plaster which came into my possession and 1 or 2 bronzes were made in Miss Brzeska’s lifetime—I only know of 1 but I think someone must have paid to have it done and got the other for his pains. The one I know of became mine & I sold it to an American & it was destroyed in New York by a fire. I had six bronzes made in 1964. . . and of these No. 1 belongs to Henry Moore, No. 2 Kettle’s Yard Collection, Cambridge, No. 3 Tate Gallery, No. 4 Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris ... I think Gaudier made the model in 1914.’ The work was not included in Gaudier’s own list of his works, drawn up before he enlisted, but figures in the Supplementary List compiled by Ede of works he had seen or found catalogued (loc. cit.). The work is sometimes known as ‘The Sea Bird’.
Published in The Tate Gallery Report 1964–1965, London 1966.
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