Ecstasy is the more polite title of the opening exhibit by Eric Gill. Frank images of sex may no longer have the power to shock in today’s art world, but this was carved in 1910. And so the exhibition begins, forcefully proposing from the first its central theme: that modern British sculpture was born in the years immediately preceding the first World War, and was spearheaded by three artists - Eric Gill, Jacob Epstein and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska.

A throwaway comment by Ezra Pound, describing Gaudier-Brzeska, lends the exhibition its title, and the fortuitousness of their collaboration is borne out in the seminal Head of Ezra Pound. This totemic statement of virility dominates the gallery with an elemental force, the culmination of a tragically short artistic career. Devoted to Gaudier-Brzeska, this room is perhaps the most interesting and complete, as it traces his work from the naturalistic and lovingly modelled Fawn to the Cubist-inspired abstraction of Redstone Dancer, illustrating the suitability of Pound’s epithet.

But the unquestionable star of the show is yet to come: Epstein’s Rock Drill will stop you short. The epitome of modernist sculpture, it presides with a brooding intensity. Up close its presence looms over you, a menacing shadow, capable of unknowable, imminent destruction. It is an eerie premonition of the war that was to erupt soon after its creation, and Epstein’s decision to dismantle it, leaving just the impotent torso, seems an understandable reaction. The narrow time period considered allows a tight comparison and strong visual impact. However, omitting any mention of what came before or after, in the work of these artists or in British sculpture generally, leaves us with no context within which to analyse the works. Nonetheless, pared down and powerful as the direct carving it presents, the show sparks a visceral, intuitive response.

Until Jan 24

KATHERINE HUDSON