Give and take: Henri Gaudier-Brzeska's Coffer for Wilfrid Scawen Blunt and Ezra Pound's homosocial modernism in 1914

Abstract

sustained attempt to cast Henri Gaudier-Brzeska (1891–1915) as a prodigy of modernist sculpture.1 Ezra Pound’s mythologizing memoir of him took the lead and characterized Gaudier as the prototypical bohemian artist whose defining trait was a fierce and uncompromising individuality.2 Because Gaudier’s death in the trenches ended his short career, the fascination with his maverick reputation has been based primarily on the accounts of his life and on a select group of works within his oeuvre. Gaudier also created a number of awkward decorative and functional objects that have proved more difficult to bring into accord with the artist’s reputation.3 The Coffer for Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (figs. 1–3) is a prime example of such an overlooked work and has rarely been considered worthy of sustained attention. This small marble casket – along with many of Gaudier’s other ‘decorative’ works – is frequently passed over in preference for his statuary, despite its importance as a commission from Ezra Pound. For instance, Roger Cole dismissed the Blunt Coffer ‘as a commercial piece of work which adds little to our understanding of the artist’.4 It is, I will argue, precisely its vexed status as a ‘commercial piece’ that makes it significant. An examination of this object and its place in the formulation of a modernist subculture in Britain sheds light on those traits of Gaudier’s artistic persona that, like this object, do not easily fit – namely, his irreverent and sexualized mockery of his own status as a producer of objects for others. Central to this question will be Pound, who was both patron and friend to Gaudier. In the commercial exchange of the artistic commission, Gaudier introduced in-jokes that both bound together and made fun of the players in that transaction. The Blunt Coffer resulted from a hurried commission given to Gaudier by Pound in 1914. The box was presented as a gift to the poet Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (1840–1922) on the occasion of what became known as the ‘Peacock Dinner’ on 18 January 1914. In the years before World War I, Pound worked energetically to establish modernism in Britain and encouraged the development of an avantgarde subculture in London. Though still in the early stages of his own career, he acted as impresario for the new movement and sought ways to increase its momentum on multiple fronts. The ‘Peacock Dinner’ was one attempt to solidify the notion of the new generation.5 Gathering together a group of eight poets, including W. B. Yeats, F. S. Flint and Richard Aldington, Pound, with the encouragement of Blunt’s former lover Lady Gregory, organized a lavish luncheon Give and take: Henri GaudierBrzeska’s Coffer for Wilfrid Scawen Blunt and Ezra Pound’s homosocial modernism in 1914 David J. Getsy