Portrait of Claud Lovat Fraser

Maker Henri Gaudier-Brzeska (French, 1891 - 1915)

ClassificationsDRAWINGS

Date1912

MediumPastel and watercolor, inscribed in graphite pencil, on wove paper

Dimensions10 1/4 × 8 in. (26 × 20.3 cm.) sheet: 22 × 16 in. (55.9 × 40.6 cm.)

Credit LineThe Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens

Status

Not on view

Label TextIn this drawing, Gaudier-Brzeska portrays his friend, the illustrator and theater designer Lovat Fraser, leaning casually against a sofa as if caught in a moment of relaxed conversation. Works like this reveal the artist’s absorption of the European modernist styles he had seen before immigrating to London from France. Rendered in bold lines and flat strokes of garish color, it echoes the saturated hues of Fauvist paintings by artists like Henri Matisse. The pastel is applied in blocks that appear as softer versions of the facets found in Cubist works (2022).

Object number93.9

Exhibitions

Friends and Family: British Artists Depict their Circle