{"id":10096,"date":"2025-03-10T17:28:04","date_gmt":"2025-03-10T16:28:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/?p=10096"},"modified":"2025-03-10T17:33:09","modified_gmt":"2025-03-10T16:33:09","slug":"celebrating-sophie-gaudier-brzeska-modernist-artist-and-writer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2025\/03\/10\/celebrating-sophie-gaudier-brzeska-modernist-artist-and-writer\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska: Modernist Artist and Writer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Tuesday<\/strong> <strong>11 March 2025, Ivor Crewe Seminar Room, Colchester Campus, University of Essex<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Event time: 2 &#8211; 4pm<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">This year marks the centenary of the death of writer and poet Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska (1872-1925), of Polish origin, who came to London in 1911 with her partner, modernist sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska. They formed an artistic alliance, dedicating their lives to fulfilling their creative visions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Gaudier-Brzeska\u2019s work spans various literary forms &#8211; from novels and poems to diaries and short stories. It is multilingual; she wrote with equal intensity in English, French, and her native Polish. Her works are part of special collections at the University of Essex, Cambridge University, Kettle\u2019s Yard, and the Mus\u00e9e des Beaux-Arts d&#8217;Orl\u00e9ans in France.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">The University of Essex holds an extensive archive of her poetry notebooks and journals in the Special Collections of the Albert Sloman Library. The commemorative afternoon will feature presentations by Dr. Patricia Gillies on&nbsp;<strong>Sophie\u2019s construction of an artistic self in Europe and England<\/strong>, despite the challenges of prejudice, poverty, and illness; by visual artist Ania Ready on&nbsp;<strong>Sophie\u2019s final years in a mental asylum<\/strong>, analysing her literary life through the lens of self-fulfilling prophecy; and by Jan Borysiak, an MA student at UCL, on how&nbsp;<strong>Sophie\u2019s life and work resonate with the experiences and expressions of Virginia Woolf<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Literary Studies<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">University of Essex. Colchester Campus<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Ivor Crewe Seminar Room<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Location:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/findyourway.essex.ac.uk\/search\/60ef1a862031e800c2303de1?projectId=essexc\">https:\/\/findyourway.essex.ac.uk\/search\/60ef1a862031e800c2303de1?projectId=essexc<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Hybrid event. Online link at:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/essex-university.zoom.us\/j\/99550998493\">https:\/\/essex-university.zoom.us\/j\/99550998493<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Organiser:&nbsp;Professor Katharine Cockin<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>More details on talks and speakers:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&nbsp;<\/a><strong>Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska\u2019s&nbsp;Construction of an Artistic Self: Poetry Notebooks and Journal<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>By Dr<\/strong><strong>&nbsp;Patricia Gilles<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Born in 1872 Galicia to impoverished aristocracy living some 70 miles from Krakow in the Polish countryside of the then Austro-Hungarian Empire, Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska died in Coney Hill Asylum, Gloucestershire UK in 1925.&nbsp;Determined to achieve selfhood as an unconventional literary artist, she left hundreds of pages of journal writings in French, many loose pages in Polish and English, and fourteen small notebooks: all evoking her sufferings, rage and resistance. One of the few points of order is a series of notebooks filled with poems, three of which are marked by her in Roman numerals, I, II, III. The poems within are marked by crossings out and revisions, all indicative of artistic intentionality. Months, years and even days ascribed to poems evidently under constant revision make attempts at dating approximative. If the texts convey a chaotic and intensely painful life, it is one that is nonetheless vowed to artistic expression. Her concept of artistic selfhood is founded in a resistance to socio-economic and political structures. For Sophie, such structures block the connection of the self to the ideal, a world beyond the artificial where the truth of artistic work is informed by primordial forces. As these forces are fundamentally anarchic and transgressive, her expression tends to be disturbed and paradoxical rather than logical and ordered. When Sophie uses verse to denounce bourgeois venality and corruption \u2013 the meaninglessness of everyday life, the conventions of marriage and social politeness \u2013&nbsp; she is asserting an artistic presence in the world in terms that reject that world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Dr Patricia Gilles<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">BA Hons in History, Northwestern University; Ph.D. French Literature and Language<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Currently Senior Lecturer in the Department of Literature Film and Theatre Studies at Essex University.&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.essex.ac.uk\/people\/GILLI96604\/Patricia-Gillies\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">www.essex.ac.uk\/people\/GILLI96604\/Patricia-Gillies<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Beneath the Jealous Moon:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska\u2019s foreboding narratives and her<\/strong><strong>&nbsp;<\/strong><strong>final years in the asylum<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>by Ania Ready<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">This talk focuses on Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska\u2019s final years in&nbsp;a mental asylum, analysing her literary life through the lens of&nbsp;self-fulfilling prophecy. Having previously visually interpreted&nbsp;the lives of Sophie\u2019s heroines &#8211; often her alter egos \u2013 through&nbsp;photographs published in a photobook&nbsp;<em>I Also Fight Windmills<\/em>,&nbsp;Ania Ready is&nbsp;now looking to create a moving image piece that&nbsp;examines&nbsp;the writer\u2019s&nbsp;final years. Her writings reveal a preoccupation&nbsp;with themes of confinement and the moon, highlighting a<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">deep-seated fear of ending up locked away. Despite the&nbsp;absence of new work during her time in the asylum, her&nbsp;earlier texts explore these motifs, creating a haunting&nbsp;narrative of entrapment and existential struggle. By&nbsp;examining the interplay between her obsessions and&nbsp;circumstances,&nbsp;Ania&nbsp;aims&nbsp;to understand how&nbsp;Sophie\u2019s&nbsp;thoughts may&nbsp;have shaped her reality, revealing the connections between&nbsp;her artistic expression and lived experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Ania Ready<\/strong>&nbsp;is an artist whose practice combines&nbsp;photography, archival materials, and text to explore the&nbsp;human psyche, agency, resilience, and feminism. In 2023,&nbsp;she published her debut monograph, \u201cI Also Fight Windmills\u201d,&nbsp;a literary photobook. Her work has been exhibited in solo and&nbsp;group shows internationally including at Modern Art Oxford,&nbsp;Pitt Rivers Museum, and Gdynia Film Centre Gallery, as well&nbsp;as various photography festivals across Europe, Canada,&nbsp;and New Zealand.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/aniaready\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/aniaready\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Reading Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska and Virginia Woolf comparatively<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>By Jan Borysiak<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Inspired by my dissertation, this presentation will analyse the similarities and differences in Virginia Woolf\u2019s and Gaudier-Brzeska texts, lives and experiences as female writers in the early 20th century. Focusing on ideas perpetuated in Woolf\u2019s essay, a Room of One\u2019s Own, this talk will aim to highlight the trials both women encountered, as well as shining a spotlight on the under-recognised work of Gaudier-Brzeska.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Jan Borysiak &#8211;&nbsp;<\/strong>Final Year BA Comparative Literature student at King&#8217;s College London.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tuesday 11 March 2025, Ivor Crewe Seminar Room, Colchester Campus, University of Essex Event time: 2 &#8211; 4pm This year marks the centenary of the death of writer and poet Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska (1872-1925), of Polish origin, who came to London in 1911 with her partner, modernist sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska. They formed an artistic alliance, dedicating [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":10098,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","category-literature"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Celebrating Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska: Modernist Artist and Writer - Instytut Polski w Londynie<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2025\/03\/10\/celebrating-sophie-gaudier-brzeska-modernist-artist-and-writer\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"pl_PL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Celebrating Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska: Modernist Artist and Writer - Instytut Polski w Londynie\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Tuesday 11 March 2025, Ivor Crewe Seminar Room, Colchester Campus, University of Essex Event time: 2 &#8211; 4pm This year marks the centenary of the death of writer and poet Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska (1872-1925), of Polish origin, who came to London in 1911 with her partner, modernist sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska. They formed an artistic alliance, dedicating [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2025\/03\/10\/celebrating-sophie-gaudier-brzeska-modernist-artist-and-writer\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Instytut Polski w Londynie\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-03-10T16:28:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-03-10T16:33:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2025\/03\/The-only-exhisting-images-of-Sophie.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"561\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"534\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"konopkab\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Napisane przez\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"konopkab\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Szacowany czas czytania\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minut\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"event\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2025\/03\/10\/celebrating-sophie-gaudier-brzeska-modernist-artist-and-writer\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2025\/03\/10\/celebrating-sophie-gaudier-brzeska-modernist-artist-and-writer\/\",\"name\":\"Celebrating Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska: Modernist Artist and Writer\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2025\/03\/10\/celebrating-sophie-gaudier-brzeska-modernist-artist-and-writer\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":[\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2025\/03\/The-only-exhisting-images-of-Sophie.jpg\",\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2025\/03\/The-only-exhisting-images-of-Sophie-300x286.jpg\",\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2025\/03\/The-only-exhisting-images-of-Sophie.jpg\",\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2025\/03\/The-only-exhisting-images-of-Sophie.jpg\"],\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2025\/03\/The-only-exhisting-images-of-Sophie.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-03-10T16:28:04+02:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-03-10T16:33:09+02:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/#\/schema\/person\/650660f82290e905505348ef8ca79a33\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2025\/03\/10\/celebrating-sophie-gaudier-brzeska-modernist-artist-and-writer\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"pl-PL\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2025\/03\/10\/celebrating-sophie-gaudier-brzeska-modernist-artist-and-writer\/\"]}],\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"startDate\":\"2025-03-11T02:00:00+02:00\",\"endDate\":\"2025-03-11T04:00:00+02:00\",\"eventStatus\":\"EventScheduled\",\"eventAttendanceMode\":\"OfflineEventAttendanceMode\",\"location\":{\"@type\":\"place\",\"name\":\"\",\"address\":\"\",\"geo\":{\"@type\":\"GeoCoordinates\",\"latitude\":\"\",\"longitude\":\"\"}},\"description\":\"Tuesday 11 March 2025, Ivor Crewe Seminar Room, Colchester Campus, University of Essex\\nEvent time: 2 - 4pm\\nThis year marks the centenary of the death of writer and poet Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska (1872-1925), of Polish origin, who came to London in 1911 with her partner, modernist sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska. They formed an artistic alliance, dedicating their lives to fulfilling their creative visions.\\nGaudier-Brzeska\u2019s work spans various literary forms - from novels and poems to diaries and short stories. It is multilingual; she wrote with equal intensity in English, French, and her native Polish. Her works are part of special collections at the University of Essex, Cambridge University, Kettle\u2019s Yard, and the Mus\u00e9e des Beaux-Arts d'Orl\u00e9ans in France.\\nThe University of Essex holds an extensive archive of her poetry notebooks and journals in the Special Collections of the Albert Sloman Library. The commemorative afternoon will feature presentations by Dr. Patricia Gillies on Sophie\u2019s construction of an artistic self in Europe and England, despite the challenges of prejudice, poverty, and illness; by visual artist Ania Ready on Sophie\u2019s final years in a mental asylum, analysing her literary life through the lens of self-fulfilling prophecy; and by Jan Borysiak, an MA student at UCL, on how Sophie\u2019s life and work resonate with the experiences and expressions of Virginia Woolf.\\nCentre for Interdisciplinary Research in Literary Studies\\nUniversity of Essex. Colchester Campus\\nIvor Crewe Seminar Room\\nLocation: https:\/\/findyourway.essex.ac.uk\/search\/60ef1a862031e800c2303de1?projectId=essexc\\nHybrid event. Online link at: https:\/\/essex-university.zoom.us\/j\/99550998493\\nOrganiser: Professor Katharine Cockin\\nMore details on talks and speakers:\\n Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska\u2019s Construction of an Artistic Self: Poetry Notebooks and Journal\\nBy Dr Patricia Gilles\\nBorn in 1872 Galicia to impoverished aristocracy living some 70 miles from Krakow in the Polish countryside of the then Austro-Hungarian Empire, Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska died in Coney Hill Asylum, Gloucestershire UK in 1925. Determined to achieve selfhood as an unconventional literary artist, she left hundreds of pages of journal writings in French, many loose pages in Polish and English, and fourteen small notebooks: all evoking her sufferings, rage and resistance. One of the few points of order is a series of notebooks filled with poems, three of which are marked by her in Roman numerals, I, II, III. The poems within are marked by crossings out and revisions, all indicative of artistic intentionality. Months, years and even days ascribed to poems evidently under constant revision make attempts at dating approximative. If the texts convey a chaotic and intensely painful life, it is one that is nonetheless vowed to artistic expression. Her concept of artistic selfhood is founded in a resistance to socio-economic and political structures. For Sophie, such structures block the connection of the self to the ideal, a world beyond the artificial where the truth of artistic work is informed by primordial forces. As these forces are fundamentally anarchic and transgressive, her expression tends to be disturbed and paradoxical rather than logical and ordered. When Sophie uses verse to denounce bourgeois venality and corruption \u2013 the meaninglessness of everyday life, the conventions of marriage and social politeness \u2013  she is asserting an artistic presence in the world in terms that reject that world.\\nDr Patricia Gilles\\nBA Hons in History, Northwestern University; Ph.D. French Literature and Language\\nCurrently Senior Lecturer in the Department of Literature Film and Theatre Studies at Essex University. www.essex.ac.uk\/people\/GILLI96604\/Patricia-Gillies\\nBeneath the Jealous Moon:\\nSophie Gaudier-Brzeska\u2019s foreboding narratives and her final years in the asylum\\nby Ania Ready\\nThis talk focuses on Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska\u2019s final years in a mental asylum, analysing her literary life through the lens of self-fulfilling prophecy. Having previously visually interpreted the lives of Sophie\u2019s heroines - often her alter egos \u2013 through photographs published in a photobook I Also Fight Windmills, Ania Ready is now looking to create a moving image piece that examines the writer\u2019s final years. Her writings reveal a preoccupation with themes of confinement and the moon, highlighting a\\ndeep-seated fear of ending up locked away. Despite the absence of new work during her time in the asylum, her earlier texts explore these motifs, creating a haunting narrative of entrapment and existential struggle. By examining the interplay between her obsessions and circumstances, Ania aims to understand how Sophie\u2019s thoughts may have shaped her reality, revealing the connections between her artistic expression and lived experience.\\nAnia Ready is an artist whose practice combines photography, archival materials, and text to explore the human psyche, agency, resilience, and feminism. In 2023, she published her debut monograph, \u201cI Also Fight Windmills\u201d, a literary photobook. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group shows internationally including at Modern Art Oxford, Pitt Rivers Museum, and Gdynia Film Centre Gallery, as well as various photography festivals across Europe, Canada, and New Zealand. https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/aniaready\/\\nReading Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska and Virginia Woolf comparatively\\nBy Jan Borysiak\\nInspired by my dissertation, this presentation will analyse the similarities and differences in Virginia Woolf\u2019s and Gaudier-Brzeska texts, lives and experiences as female writers in the early 20th century. Focusing on ideas perpetuated in Woolf\u2019s essay, a Room of One\u2019s Own, this talk will aim to highlight the trials both women encountered, as well as shining a spotlight on the under-recognised work of Gaudier-Brzeska.\\nJan Borysiak - Final Year BA Comparative Literature student at King's College London.\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"pl-PL\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2025\/03\/10\/celebrating-sophie-gaudier-brzeska-modernist-artist-and-writer\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2025\/03\/The-only-exhisting-images-of-Sophie.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2025\/03\/The-only-exhisting-images-of-Sophie.jpg\",\"width\":561,\"height\":534},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2025\/03\/10\/celebrating-sophie-gaudier-brzeska-modernist-artist-and-writer\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Celebrating Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska: Modernist Artist and Writer\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/\",\"name\":\"Instytut Polski w Londynie\",\"description\":\"Instytuty Polskie\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"pl-PL\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/#\/schema\/person\/650660f82290e905505348ef8ca79a33\",\"name\":\"konopkab\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"pl-PL\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fb1006bc5b4ae26fa605cdf675d5e97c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fb1006bc5b4ae26fa605cdf675d5e97c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"konopkab\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/author\/konopkab\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Celebrating Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska: Modernist Artist and Writer - Instytut Polski w Londynie","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2025\/03\/10\/celebrating-sophie-gaudier-brzeska-modernist-artist-and-writer\/","og_locale":"pl_PL","og_type":"article","og_title":"Celebrating Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska: Modernist Artist and Writer - Instytut Polski w Londynie","og_description":"Tuesday 11 March 2025, Ivor Crewe Seminar Room, Colchester Campus, University of Essex Event time: 2 &#8211; 4pm This year marks the centenary of the death of writer and poet Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska (1872-1925), of Polish origin, who came to London in 1911 with her partner, modernist sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska. They formed an artistic alliance, dedicating [&hellip;]","og_url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2025\/03\/10\/celebrating-sophie-gaudier-brzeska-modernist-artist-and-writer\/","og_site_name":"Instytut Polski w Londynie","article_published_time":"2025-03-10T16:28:04+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-03-10T16:33:09+00:00","og_image":[{"width":561,"height":534,"url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2025\/03\/The-only-exhisting-images-of-Sophie.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"konopkab","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Napisane przez":"konopkab","Szacowany czas czytania":"6 minut"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"event","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2025\/03\/10\/celebrating-sophie-gaudier-brzeska-modernist-artist-and-writer\/","url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2025\/03\/10\/celebrating-sophie-gaudier-brzeska-modernist-artist-and-writer\/","name":"Celebrating Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska: Modernist Artist and Writer","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2025\/03\/10\/celebrating-sophie-gaudier-brzeska-modernist-artist-and-writer\/#primaryimage"},"image":["https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2025\/03\/The-only-exhisting-images-of-Sophie.jpg","https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2025\/03\/The-only-exhisting-images-of-Sophie-300x286.jpg","https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2025\/03\/The-only-exhisting-images-of-Sophie.jpg","https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2025\/03\/The-only-exhisting-images-of-Sophie.jpg"],"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2025\/03\/The-only-exhisting-images-of-Sophie.jpg","datePublished":"2025-03-10T16:28:04+02:00","dateModified":"2025-03-10T16:33:09+02:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/#\/schema\/person\/650660f82290e905505348ef8ca79a33"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2025\/03\/10\/celebrating-sophie-gaudier-brzeska-modernist-artist-and-writer\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"pl-PL","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2025\/03\/10\/celebrating-sophie-gaudier-brzeska-modernist-artist-and-writer\/"]}],"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","startDate":"2025-03-11T02:00:00+02:00","endDate":"2025-03-11T04:00:00+02:00","eventStatus":"EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"OfflineEventAttendanceMode","location":{"@type":"place","name":"","address":"","geo":{"@type":"GeoCoordinates","latitude":"","longitude":""}},"description":"Tuesday 11 March 2025, Ivor Crewe Seminar Room, Colchester Campus, University of Essex\nEvent time: 2 - 4pm\nThis year marks the centenary of the death of writer and poet Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska (1872-1925), of Polish origin, who came to London in 1911 with her partner, modernist sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska. They formed an artistic alliance, dedicating their lives to fulfilling their creative visions.\nGaudier-Brzeska\u2019s work spans various literary forms - from novels and poems to diaries and short stories. It is multilingual; she wrote with equal intensity in English, French, and her native Polish. Her works are part of special collections at the University of Essex, Cambridge University, Kettle\u2019s Yard, and the Mus\u00e9e des Beaux-Arts d'Orl\u00e9ans in France.\nThe University of Essex holds an extensive archive of her poetry notebooks and journals in the Special Collections of the Albert Sloman Library. The commemorative afternoon will feature presentations by Dr. Patricia Gillies on Sophie\u2019s construction of an artistic self in Europe and England, despite the challenges of prejudice, poverty, and illness; by visual artist Ania Ready on Sophie\u2019s final years in a mental asylum, analysing her literary life through the lens of self-fulfilling prophecy; and by Jan Borysiak, an MA student at UCL, on how Sophie\u2019s life and work resonate with the experiences and expressions of Virginia Woolf.\nCentre for Interdisciplinary Research in Literary Studies\nUniversity of Essex. Colchester Campus\nIvor Crewe Seminar Room\nLocation: https:\/\/findyourway.essex.ac.uk\/search\/60ef1a862031e800c2303de1?projectId=essexc\nHybrid event. Online link at: https:\/\/essex-university.zoom.us\/j\/99550998493\nOrganiser: Professor Katharine Cockin\nMore details on talks and speakers:\n Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska\u2019s Construction of an Artistic Self: Poetry Notebooks and Journal\nBy Dr Patricia Gilles\nBorn in 1872 Galicia to impoverished aristocracy living some 70 miles from Krakow in the Polish countryside of the then Austro-Hungarian Empire, Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska died in Coney Hill Asylum, Gloucestershire UK in 1925. Determined to achieve selfhood as an unconventional literary artist, she left hundreds of pages of journal writings in French, many loose pages in Polish and English, and fourteen small notebooks: all evoking her sufferings, rage and resistance. One of the few points of order is a series of notebooks filled with poems, three of which are marked by her in Roman numerals, I, II, III. The poems within are marked by crossings out and revisions, all indicative of artistic intentionality. Months, years and even days ascribed to poems evidently under constant revision make attempts at dating approximative. If the texts convey a chaotic and intensely painful life, it is one that is nonetheless vowed to artistic expression. Her concept of artistic selfhood is founded in a resistance to socio-economic and political structures. For Sophie, such structures block the connection of the self to the ideal, a world beyond the artificial where the truth of artistic work is informed by primordial forces. As these forces are fundamentally anarchic and transgressive, her expression tends to be disturbed and paradoxical rather than logical and ordered. When Sophie uses verse to denounce bourgeois venality and corruption \u2013 the meaninglessness of everyday life, the conventions of marriage and social politeness \u2013  she is asserting an artistic presence in the world in terms that reject that world.\nDr Patricia Gilles\nBA Hons in History, Northwestern University; Ph.D. French Literature and Language\nCurrently Senior Lecturer in the Department of Literature Film and Theatre Studies at Essex University. www.essex.ac.uk\/people\/GILLI96604\/Patricia-Gillies\nBeneath the Jealous Moon:\nSophie Gaudier-Brzeska\u2019s foreboding narratives and her final years in the asylum\nby Ania Ready\nThis talk focuses on Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska\u2019s final years in a mental asylum, analysing her literary life through the lens of self-fulfilling prophecy. Having previously visually interpreted the lives of Sophie\u2019s heroines - often her alter egos \u2013 through photographs published in a photobook I Also Fight Windmills, Ania Ready is now looking to create a moving image piece that examines the writer\u2019s final years. Her writings reveal a preoccupation with themes of confinement and the moon, highlighting a\ndeep-seated fear of ending up locked away. Despite the absence of new work during her time in the asylum, her earlier texts explore these motifs, creating a haunting narrative of entrapment and existential struggle. By examining the interplay between her obsessions and circumstances, Ania aims to understand how Sophie\u2019s thoughts may have shaped her reality, revealing the connections between her artistic expression and lived experience.\nAnia Ready is an artist whose practice combines photography, archival materials, and text to explore the human psyche, agency, resilience, and feminism. In 2023, she published her debut monograph, \u201cI Also Fight Windmills\u201d, a literary photobook. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group shows internationally including at Modern Art Oxford, Pitt Rivers Museum, and Gdynia Film Centre Gallery, as well as various photography festivals across Europe, Canada, and New Zealand. https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/aniaready\/\nReading Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska and Virginia Woolf comparatively\nBy Jan Borysiak\nInspired by my dissertation, this presentation will analyse the similarities and differences in Virginia Woolf\u2019s and Gaudier-Brzeska texts, lives and experiences as female writers in the early 20th century. Focusing on ideas perpetuated in Woolf\u2019s essay, a Room of One\u2019s Own, this talk will aim to highlight the trials both women encountered, as well as shining a spotlight on the under-recognised work of Gaudier-Brzeska.\nJan Borysiak - Final Year BA Comparative Literature student at King's College London."},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"pl-PL","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2025\/03\/10\/celebrating-sophie-gaudier-brzeska-modernist-artist-and-writer\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2025\/03\/The-only-exhisting-images-of-Sophie.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2025\/03\/The-only-exhisting-images-of-Sophie.jpg","width":561,"height":534},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2025\/03\/10\/celebrating-sophie-gaudier-brzeska-modernist-artist-and-writer\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Celebrating Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska: Modernist Artist and Writer"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/#website","url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/","name":"Instytut Polski w Londynie","description":"Instytuty Polskie","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"pl-PL"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/#\/schema\/person\/650660f82290e905505348ef8ca79a33","name":"konopkab","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"pl-PL","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fb1006bc5b4ae26fa605cdf675d5e97c?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fb1006bc5b4ae26fa605cdf675d5e97c?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"konopkab"},"url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/author\/konopkab\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10096"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10102,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10096\/revisions\/10102"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}