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Modern British and Irish Art

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Lot 84

Henri Gaudier-Brzeska
(French 1891-1915)
Gorilla 52.2 cm. (20 1/2 in.) long

29 May 2013, 14:00 BST

London, New Bond Street

£7,000 - £9,000

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Henri Gaudier-Brzeska (French 1891-1915)

Gorilla
numbered '7/7' and stamped with the Morris Singer Foundry stamp (lower right)
bronze with a black patina
52.2 cm. (20 1/2 in.) long
Conceived circa 1912

Footnotes

PROVENANCE:
With Mercury Gallery, London

EXHIBITED:
London, Zwemmer Gallery, Drawings and Sculpture by Some Contemporary Sculptors: Jacob Epstein, Frank Dobson, Henry Moore, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, 26 November-13 December 1930, cat.no.47 (plaster cast exhibited as Chimpanzee)
London, Zwemmer Gallery, Christmas Exhibition, 6 December 1938-17 January 1939, cat.no.1 (the 1938 cast exhibited)
Leeds, Temple Newsam, Roy de Maistre, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, 26 June-29 August 1943, cat.no.58 (the 1938 cast exhibited)

LITERATURE:
Horace Brodzky, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Faber, London, 1932, p.117 (plaster cast ill.b&w)
Mervyn Levy, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska: Drawings and Sculpture, Cory, Adams & Mackay, London, 1965, p.29, cat.no.69
Roger Cole, Burning to Speak; The Life and Art of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Phaidon, Oxford, 1978, p.63, cat.no.16
Evelyn Silber, Gaudier-Brzeska; Life and Art, Thames and Hudson, London, 1996, p.256, cat.no.28 (another cast ill.b&w pl.27)
Jonathan Black, The Moving Agent; Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, primitivism, technology and violence in We the Moderns; Gaudier-Brzeska and the Birth of Modern Sculpture, Cambridge, Kettles Yard, 2007, p.91 (another cast ill.)

Silber suggests that the plaster version of Gorilla was most likely produced in October 1912 on the grounds of 'the formal daring of the cut-off, semi-relief format, the monumentality of the work and its exaggerated expression' (Evelyn Silber, Gaudier-Brzeska; Life and Art, Thames and Hudson, London, 1996, p.256). A single bronze cast was taken from the plaster by Anton Zwemmer in 1938, a further seven casts, of which the present lot is an example, were produced prior to 1973 by the Morris Singer Foundry.

Additional information

The 29 May sale was the departments most successful auction to date making almost £5m.
Furthermore, it was 90% sold by value with some staggering results achieved for fresh, competitively priced material sourced from private collections. Over half of sold lots soared above their high estimates, indicating that Bonhams is best positioned to secure the best price for your Modern British & Irish Art.
The variety on offer within this genre continues to delight buyers, proven by exceptional results for post-war masters such as Auerbach, Scully, Hockney and Freud whilst the early-mid century examples by Spencer, Lavery, Burra and Moore also exceeded expectation. We were proud to break our own world auction record twice over in the same sale for a pencil drawing by L.S. Lowry. Agecroft Regatta sold for £211,250, pipping The Organ Grinder (£151,250) to the title. The sculpture and Irish content were similarly contended for by the packed saleroom and busy telephones.
The cover lot Garden Path, Cookham Rise by Sir Stanley Spencer fetched an impressive £769,250 while the much admired Oil-bound Puffin by Lucian Freud commanded £385,250 on the day, with both returning to private collections.
We are delighted to now invite consignments for the forthcoming auction on 20 November 2013.
Please contact a member of the department or visit the sale webpage for further information.
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