The main entrance of the Museum can be identified by locating the large bronze birdbath by French artist Henri Gaudier-Brzeska. Placed here when the Museum first opened its doors in 1994, it is a unique and striking landmark on the McMaster campus that is not easily missed.

Excerpt from the permanent collection catalogue The Levy Legacy by Dr. Niamh O'Laoghaire:

" ... Henri Gaudier-Brzeska began working in sculpture in 1910. In 1911 he moved to England and became involved with the Futurist-influenced Vorticist group. His manifesto "Vortex" was published in its journal Blast. Roger Fry, Jacob Epstein and Wyndham Lewis were all extremely impressed by him. The first critique of his ouevre, Gaudier-Brzeska, A Memoir (1916) was written by Ezra Pound. Gaudier-Brzeska demonstrated an extraordinary range of abilities before he died in 1915, only twenty-three, while serving in the French Army.

During his brief working life, and despite great poverty, Gaudier-Brzeska was exceptionally prolific, producing drawings in pencil, ink, crayon, chalk, pastel, gouache and watercolour, along with sculpture in plaster, wood, granite, marble, brass and bronze.

Bird Bath was commissioned in 1914 by Roger Fry the art critic, painter, and founder of the Omega Workshops. It was intended as a focal point for Fry's terraced garden, designed by Gertrude Jeckyll. The outbreak of World War I, Gaudier-Brzeska's death, and the 1919 sale of Fry's property prevented completion of the project as planned. Bird Bath has since been scaled-up and was cast in bronze in 1992, as originally intended in an edition of three, at the Morris Singer Foundry.

Maquette for Bird Bath 1914 Plaster maquette, painted 28 x 28 x 26.3 cm Unique Levy Bequest Purchase; Mercury Gallery, London (via agent); Anthony Fry, London; Roger Fry, London. photo: Isaac Applebaum, Toronto

Both the original maquette and the cast versions involve interlocked sitting or squatting nudes. Faces are heavily stylized and mask-like, clearly influenced by "primitive" sources and evoking Picasso's early Cubist configurations. The angular forms produce dramatic juxtapositions of light and dark planes, while Futurist and Vorticist dynamic lines of force twist and energize the composition."