Studies of Birds (circa 1912-13)

The trainee solicitor and artist Claud Lovat Fraser (1890-1921) supported Henri Gaudier-Brzeska whilst the sculptor lived in London from 1910 until his untimely death in 1915. They had worked on the illustrations of Haldane MacFall's book The Splendid Wayfaring (1913) along with Edward Gordon Craig. Lovat's support included a gift of tickets to The Regent's Park Zoo. There Gaudier-Brzeska spent his weekends sketching the animals so quickly that the ink was often still wet as he turned the page. With a few elegant lines and no shading, he managed to convey three-dimensional form and capture a momentary view of a beast in movement. Resting or alert, standing or pacing, each animal's unique personality is encapsulated in the of drawings purchased from the intestate estate of the late Miss Sophie Brzeska (1872-1925) through the Treasury Solicitor by C. Frank Stoop (1863-1933) by whom gifted to the Contemporary Art Society and presented to the Tate Gallery, 1930. These studies of birds may have been an inspiration for the fairly abstract carved stone group of Birds Erect (1913) in the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

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