Modernism and the Museum

Abstract

Abstract Chapter 4 turns to the material fragments of ancient Greek sculpture in the modern museum and their influence on modernist sculpture. It focuses specifically on the British Museum, which functioned not only as the de facto workshop of several modernist writers but as the source of inspiration for some of the most radical visual artists of the period: Jacob Epstein (who was also a vocal critic of the museum’s curatorial practices) and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska. Despite their radical modernist credentials, these artists continued to turn to the fragments of classical sculpture in the museum collections. Moreover, the fragments they produced also helped to instigate a revolution in the display practices of the museum itself. Seduced by the turn to the fragment unfolding around them, the classical scholars working behind the scenes at the museum began to re-evaluate their own display practices, advocating the removal of the plaster ‘completions’ which had been added to the fragmentary pieces in the collection. The results changed the ways in which fragmentary classical sculpture is displayed in the British Museum – and ultimately the fabric of the building itself.