The current archive display in the case outside the Research Space at Kettle’s Yard explores the presence of writer Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska in the Kettle’s Yard Archive. The materials included show her multifaceted and continuing significance within the history of Kettle’s Yard, through her own words, her image and recent interpretations of her work and life.
Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska (b. Poland 1872, d. England 1925), was the sole inheritor of artist Henri Gaudier-Brzeska’s estate upon his death during the First World War in 1915. In the years following the artist’s death, Sophie worked with fellow artists, collectors and galleries in order to secure his artistic legacy.
Jim Ede, creator of Kettle’s Yard, subsequently acquired both Sophie and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska’s estates following Sophie’s death in 1925. This acquisition was not only foundational to the Kettle’s Yard collection, with many of the works by Henri Gaudier-Brzeska remaining on display today, but Sophie’s writings also contributed to Ede’s biography on Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Savage Messiah, which was first published in 1931.
Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska worked mostly as a tutor and governess for various families in Poland, France and New York, as a means to support her writing. She met Henri Gaudier-Brzeska in the Sainte-Geneviève Library in Paris in 1910, and an enduring companionship followed. The pair moved to London later the same year and Sophie remained in England for the rest of her life.
Despite Sophie’s life-long pursuit of writing, her work remained unpublished until 2008 when her biographical work Matka was published in English in Matka and Other Writings (London, Mercury Press), along with examples of her correspondence with artists and writers in the early twentieth century, all written between 1915-1918.
The objects in the vitrine provide a glimpse into Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska’s legacy within the archive at Kettle’s Yard, which is at once present and absent. For example, a black and white photograph of a colourful pastel portrait of Sophie by Henri Gaudier-Brzeska in 1913, is a work which was once in Jim Ede’s collection. However, the original was sold to Tate in 1957, which coincides with Ede’s renovations of Kettle’s Yard. In acquiring both Henri and Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska’s estates, Jim Ede used their surviving correspondence, Sophie’s dairies and other forms of writing to form the basis of his research for his biography on Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Savage Messiah. Despite her posthumous contribution to Ede’s research, Sophie’s significance in the artists life and legacy is largely neglected in the story.
Ede donated the majority of Sophie’s archive to the University of Essex in 1964, however two exercise books belonging to her remain at Kettle’s Yard. These include short stories, poems, diary entries, lists and rough notes, with the texts in each book written in Polish, French or English. Two short stories written in English are included in the archive display.
Both stories centre on a woman in search of happiness, having been misjudged. This is a reoccurring theme in Sophie’s work, including in Matka. The preface for Matka and Other Writings states that Sophie’s spelling in English appears more “chaotic”, as well as the appearance of her handwriting in both French and English. The writings included in the archive display date slightly later from those included in Matka and Other Writings, as one is dated from October 1920. The chaotic nature of her handwriting and spelling remains, as there are several instances where her inscriptions have been crossed out or written over.
In 1989, a play on the life and writings of Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska titled Sisik was staged. The writer, Louise Tomkin, included a dialogue between Sophie and the artist Nina Hamnett. The pair experienced a somewhat awkward relationship following Henri Gaudier-Brzeska’s death, due to both being closely acquainted with the artist; Sophie being his companion and Nina, having modelled for his sculptures Torso (1913) and Dancer (1913), was briefly his lover. This relationship continues to have resonance with artists today, and has formed the basis of Lubaina Himid and Magda Stawarska’s installation Slightly Bitter (2025), in the current exhibition Lubaina Himid with Magda Stawarska: Another Chance Encounter at Kettle’s Yard.
Another Chance Encounter
Zosik, Sisik, Mamuska: Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska Display
