... he is a Pole, born in Australia and brought up in America, not very clever but a pleasant enough, amusing fellow

Gaudier met the artist and writer Horace Brodsky (1885-1969) in 1913, the same year that he gave up his job and took a studio at Fulham. Brodksy wrote a biography of Gaudier in 1933. This portrait is a bold, faceted representation with craggy bone structure and protruding eye sockets. Brodsky and Gaudier liked to wrestle, earning Gaudier the nickname savage messiah from his partner Sophie and Brodsky. A running figure and a female head are scratched onto the bare chest (scraffito): Brodsky described how Gaudier inscribed them onto the cast as if for fun.