constantin brancusi

Constantin Brancusi (February 19, 1876 – March 16, 1957, originally Constantin Brâncuşi IPA: /kon.stan'tin brɨn'kuʃʲ/), was a Romanian sculptor, born in Hobiţa, Gorj, near Târgu Jiu, where he placed his sculptural ensemble with The Table of Silence, The Gate of the Kiss and The Endless Column.

Life

Brancusi studied art at the Şcoala de Meserii (school of arts and crafts) in Craiova from 1894 to 1898 and at the Şcoala Naţională de Arte Frumoase (national school of fine arts) in Bucharest from 1898 to 1901. He left Romania in 1904 and walked to Paris, where he continued his studies at the École des Beaux-Arts in 1905.

As an art student he served as a studio assistant to Auguste Rodin, but his style moved beyond naturalist representation to stylized elegant forms. When Rodin proposed to Brancusi to become his assistant, Brancusi refused and his answer was "In the shadow of a big tree, another tree cannot grow.” Brancusi was one of the first sculptors to experiment with abstract art. His sculptures became progressively smoother and less figurative, until only the barest outline of the original subject was left, venturing even farther away from figurative sculpture than his countryman and contemporary Dimitrie Paciurea.

Brancusi produced a series of sculptures in metal called Bird in Space. His work was considered magnificent art by some, but others had a different opinion. Edward Steichen, a prominent photographer, purchased one of these birds in 1926 and tried to bring it into the United States. However, the Customs officers did not accept the bird as a work of art and placed a duty upon its import as an industrial item (some say they identified it as a propeller). A trial the next year overturned the assessment. [1]

Constantin Brancusi lived and worked from 1925 to 1957 in his workshop in the 15ème arrondissement of Paris. The original workshop has disappeared and has been rebuilt near the Centre Georges Pompidou. During this time he was assisted in his a studio, for a few months by Isamu Noguchi - greatly influencing Noguchi's work.

Brancusi died on March 16, 1957 and was buried in the Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris, France. Also located in that cemetery are statues carved by Brancusi for several fellow artists who committed suicide; the best-known of these is Le Baiser (The Kiss).

Legacy

His works are housed in the New York Museum of Modern Art and in the National Museum of Art of Romania (in Bucharest), as well as in other major museums around the world. The Philadelphia Museum of Art currently has the largest collection of Brancusi sculptures in the US.

Brancusi's onetime studio in Paris is open to the public. It is very close to the Pompidou Centre, in the rue Rambuteau. He bequeathed part of his collection to the French state on condition that his workshop be rebuilt as it was on the day he died.

In 2004, a sculpture by Brancusi named Danaide sold for $18.1 million, the highest that a sculpture piece had ever sold for at auction. In May 2005, a piece from the Bird in Space series broke that record, selling for $27.5 million in a Christie's auction. [2]

Brancusi was elected post-mortem to the Romanian Academy in 1990.

Quotations

The people who call my work 'abstract' are imbeciles; what they call 'abstract' is in fact the purest realism, the reality of which is not represented by external form but by the idea behind it, the essence of the work.

Create like a god, command like a king, work like a slave.

Selected works

• The Endless Column
• Bird in Space (series)
• Sleeping Muse [3]
• Newborn