Hieratic Head of Ezra Pound

Sculpture by Henri Gaudier-Brzeska

Artist| Henri Gaudier-Brzeska
Year| 1914 (1914)
Medium| marble
Movement| Vorticism
Subject| Ezra Pound
Dimensions| 90.5 cm × 45.7 cm × 48.9 cm (35.6 in × 18.0 in × 19.3 in)[1]
Location| National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Website| https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.143144.html

Hieratic Head of Ezra Pound is a Vorticist sculpture of the American poet Ezra Pound, made in marble by the French artist Henri Gaudier-Brzeska. It belonged to Pound for many years. Since 2009, it is in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

## Description and history

[edit]

Hieratic Head of Ezra Pound is a marble bust of the American poet Ezra Pound, stylized in an angular and simplified way. Pound's hair is compact and reminiscent of a turban. His eyes are dark, thin slots and his moustache and mouth are one piece. His nose looks like a noseguard from a medieval helmet but is also asymmetric and angled out at the top of the left side. Viewed from the back, the sculpture looks like a penis with a scrotum and a large glans.[2][3]

Craig Raine of The Guardian calls it a great work that avoids being bland through the use of asymmetry. He says photographs do not do it justice and likens it to "something found on Easter Island".[2] He says the technique of carving directly in marble, without a clay or plaster model, gives it "an earnest of Vorticist energy, of vitalism".[2] The Independent profiled it in 2013 as part of an article series on "great works".[3]

The sculpture was first exhibited in 1914 at the Whitechapel Gallery in London, listed under the title Bust of Mr. Ezra Pound. It was purchased by the novelist Ford Madox Hueffer for two pounds and ten shillings. It then belonged to Pound and his estate until it was sold through Hirschl & Adler Galleries in New York in 1988 to Raymond and Nancy Nasher. It was gifted to the National Gallery of Art in 2009.[1]

## References

[edit]

1. ^ a b "Hieratic Head of Ezra Pound, 1914". National Gallery of Art. Retrieved 4 November 2022.
2. ^ a b c Raine, Craig (28 May 2011). "Vorticism: the biz of the buzz – review". The Guardian. Retrieved 4 November 2022.
3. ^ a b Glover, Michael (26 September 2013). "Great works: Hieratic Head of Ezra Pound (1914) by Henri Gaudier-Brzeska". The Independent. Retrieved 4 November 2022.

## External links

[edit]

* Media related to Hieratic Head of Ezra Pound at Wikimedia Commons

* v
* t
* e

Ezra Pound

Poetry|

* A Lume Spento (July 1908)
* A Quinzaine for this Yule (December 1908)
* "Ballad of the Goodly Fere" (1909)
* Ripostes (1912)
* "In a Station of the Metro" (1913)
* Cathay (1915)
* "The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter"
* Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (1920)
* The Cantos (1917–1968)
* Cultural references in The Cantos

Other works|

* The Spirit of Romance (1910)
* Des Imagistes (1914)
* ABC of Reading (1934)
* Jefferson and/or Mussolini (1935)
* Guide to Kulchur (1938)
* Radio broadcasts, 1941–1945
* If This Be Treason (1948)

Concepts|

* Ideogrammic method
* Imagism
* Parable of the Sunfish
* Periplum
* Three Kinds of Poetry
* Vorticism

Family|

* William Wadsworth (maternal ancestor)
* Thaddeus C. Pound (grandfather)
* Dorothy Shakespear (wife)
* Omar Pound (son)
* Olivia Shakespear (mother-in-law)
* Olga Rudge (partner)
* Mary de Rachewiltz (daughter)
* Boris de Rachewiltz (son-in-law)

Literary circle|

* Richard Aldington
* E. E. Cummings
* H.D.
* T. S. Eliot
* Ford Madox Ford
* Henri Gaudier-Brzeska
* Ernest Hemingway
* T. E. Hulme
* James Joyce
* James Laughlin
* New Directions
* Wyndham Lewis
* Archibald MacLeish
* Charles Elkin Mathews
* William Brooke Smith
* Allen Tate
* William Carlos Williams
* W. B. Yeats

Works about|

* Discretions
* The Pound Era
* Reading Pound Reading
* "Visits to St. Elizabeths"
* A ZBC of Ezra Pound

Miscellaneous|

* Blast
* Brunnenburg
* CasaPound
* Julien Cornell
* Hieratic Head of Ezra Pound
* Hugh Kenner
* Ezra Pound (Lewis)
* Famous Last Words
* Modernism
* St. Elizabeths Hospital
* Vienna Café

* v
* t
* e

Vorticism

Vorticists|

* Lawrence Atkinson
* David Bomberg
* Jessica Dismorr
* Jacob Epstein
* Frederick Etchells
* Henri Gaudier-Brzeska
* Cuthbert Hamilton
* Kate Lechmere
* Wyndham Lewis
* Ezra Pound
* William Roberts
* Helen Saunders
* Dorothy Shakespear
* Edward Wadsworth

Output|

* Blast (1914–1915)
* The Crowd (1914–1915)
* Hieratic Head of Ezra Pound (1914)
* The Mud Bath (1914)
* Rock Drill (1913)

Works about|

* The Vorticists at the Restaurant de la Tour Eiffel, Spring 1915 (1962 painting)

*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template