Sophie Brzeska

Sophie Brzeska
Sophie Brzeska, ca 1910
Born	Zofia Brzeska near Kraków, Poland
Died	Barnwood, Gloucestershire, England
Nationality	Polish
Known for	Writing, Muse

Sophie Suzanne Brzeska or Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska (1873–1925) was a Polish writer and artistic muse most noted for being the companion of sculptor/artist Henri Gaudier-Brzeska (a man half her age).

They met in 1909 at the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève in Paris, and began an intense symbiotic relationship. Henri annexed her surname although they never married. Much of what scholars and historians have been able to trace about Sophie Brzeska has come from her personal correspondence with Henri. Long an admirer of Gaudier's work, the art collector and historian, H. S. Ede acquired her estate in 1927 from the British Treasury Solicitor after she died intestate. This acquisition included not only her writings, but also the estate of Henri Gaudier, with many of his works and papers. Ede drew extensively on the letters written by Gaudier to Sophie and her writings and other material when he published A Life of Gaudier-Brzeska (London: W. Heinemann) in 1930; the 1931 and later editions are entitled Savage Messiah. The papers he used for this account are now in the archives of Cambridge University Library, the University of Essex and the Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Orléans. Time Magazine called his book a "sympathetic but perfectly impersonal... biography." In 2008 Sophie's unexpurgated writings were published.

Sophie Brzeska was born near Kraków, Poland in 1873 to a family of eleven. She described her mother as "weary" and her father as "womanising", both of whom both believed she was a "burden needing to be married off." She resisted and fled Poland for Paris to become a writer. She accepted a succession of jobs as governess, one of which involved her living in the United States for several years. These ventures with other people's families left her contemplating suicide. In June 1910 Henri (born 1891) met Sophie, describing her in a letter to a friend as, "a Polish ex-governess twice his age."

Sophia was a companion and her relationship with Gaudier resembled a co-dependency, since both suffered from mental health issues and stress brought on by poverty. Henri was devoted to Sophie, even taking her last name as his, but Sophie was often dismissive and cold towards Henri's romantic overtures (according to Ede they either never had sex, only once or twice or rarely). They were often apart and Sophie would buy Henri prostitutes for his enjoyment instead of having sexual relations with him.