Modernism/modernity Volume 17, Number 1, January 2010 pp. 135-169.
In his recent biography of the modernist sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska [Fig. 1], Paul O’Keeffe points to a puzzle that continues to baffle historians: what compelling change in perspective would cause a self-declared anti-militarist—whose principled opposition to the French army remained steadfast at least until Spring 1913—to enthusiastically volunteer for service when war broke out in early August 1914? Having moved to London from Paris in January 1911, Gaudier-Brzeska rose to prominence after exhibiting his sculpture at the July 1913 Allied Artists Association exhibition; he then befriended the poet Ezra Pound and, in 1914, became a founding member of the English Vorticists. Gaudier contributed a manifesto to the Vorticist’s journal Blast in June 1914 and following his voluntary enlistment in the French army he published a second manifesto written while in the trenches in the July 1915 issue of Blast. The second edition of Blast also included a brief notice, titled "Mort pour la patrie," stating that Gaudier-Brzeska had been killed on June 5, 1915 "after a month of fighting and two promotions for gallantry."