Constantin Brancusi is often regarded as the most important sculptor of
the twentieth century. His visionary sculptures often exemplify ideal
and archetypal representations of their subject matter. Bearing laconic
titles such as Fish, Princess X, and Bird in Space, his sculptures are deceptively simple, with their reduced forms aiming to reveal hidden truths. Unlike the towering figure of Auguste Rodin,
for whom Brancusi briefly assisted early in his career, Brancusi worked
directly with his materials, pioneering the technique of direct
carving, rather than working with intermediaries such as plaster or clay
models.
'Aş vrea ca lucrările mele să se ridice în parcuri şi
grădini publice, să se joace copiii peste ele, cum s-ar fi jucat peste
pietre şi monumente născute din pământ, nimeni să nu ştie ce sunt şi
cine le-a făcut - dar toată lumea să simtă necesitatea şi prietenia lor,
ca ceva ce face parte din sufletul Naturii.'
Constantin Brancusi was born February 19, 1876, in
Hobitza, Romania and was a Romanian sculptor, painter and photographer who made his career in France. Considered a pioneer of modernism,
one of the most influential sculptors of the 20th-century, Brâncuși is
called the patriarch of modern sculpture. As a child he displayed an
aptitude for carving wooden farm tools. Formal studies took him first to Bucharest, then to Munich, then to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1905 to 1907. His art emphasizes clean geometrical lines that balance forms inherent in his materials with the symbolic allusions of representational art. Brâncuși sought inspiration in non-European cultures as a source of primitive exoticism, as did Paul Gauguin, Pablo Picasso, André Derain and others. But other influences emerge from Romanian folk art traceable through Byzantine and Dionysian traditions.He studied art at the Scoala de Meserii (school of
arts and crafts) in Craiova from 1894 to 1898 and at the Scoala
Natzionala de Arte Frumoase (national school of fine arts) in Bucharest
from 1898 to 1901. Eager to continue his education in Paris, Brancusi
arrived there in 1904 and enrolled in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1905.
The following year, his sculpture was shown at the Salon d’Automne,
where he met Auguste Rodin.
Soon after 1907, Brancusi’s mature
period began. The sculptor had settled in Paris but throughout these
years returned frequently to Bucharest and exhibited there almost every
year. In Paris, his friends included Marcel Duchamp, Fernand Léger,
Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, and Henri Rousseau. In 1913, five of
Brancusi’s sculptures were included in the Armory Show in New York.
Alfred Stieglitz presented the first solo show of Brancusi’s work at his
gallery “291,” New York, in 1914. Brancusi was never a member of any
organized artistic movement, although he associated with Francis
Picabia, Tristan Tzara, and many other Dadaists in the early 1920s. In
1921, he was honored with a special issue of The Little Review.
He traveled to the United States twice in 1926 to attend his solo shows
at Wildenstein and at the Brummer Gallery in New York. The following
year, a historic trial was initiated in the United States to determine
whether Brancusi’s Bird in Space was liable for duty as a
manufactured object or as a work of art. The court decided in 1928 that
the sculpture was a work of art.
Brancusi traveled extensively in
the 1930s, visiting India and Egypt as well as European countries. He
was commissioned to create a war memorial for a park in Turgu Jiu,
Romania, in 1935, and designed a complex that included gates, tables,
stools, and an Endless Column. After 1939, Brancusi continued to work in Paris. His last sculpture, a plaster Grand Coq, was completed in 1949. In 1952, Brancusi became a French citizen. He died March 16, 1957, in Paris.(guggenheim )
