Constantin Brâncuși

Biography

In 1903 Brâncuși received a commission for a bust of Carol Davila, a physician and general. According to the Romanian version, the committee demanded first a smaller nose, then a correction to the epaulettes, and the sculptor, not waiting for the second half of his fee, walked out. The bust still stands outside the Military Hospital in Bucharest. We know this story mainly from his own late account, so the details are hard to check.

He was born on 19 February 1876 in the village of Hobița in Gorj County, into a peasant family with a tradition of woodworking. He finished primary school in Peștișani early; at eleven he left home for Târgu Jiu, worked for a dyer, then in an inn, and later in Craiova in a warehouse and a shop. In Craiova his dexterity drew notice: from materials found at work he made a violin. In 1894 he entered the Craiova School of Arts and Crafts and finished in 1898. He then studied at the National School of Fine Arts in Bucharest; in 1900–1902, with the physician Dimitrie Gerota, he made the Écorché, a figure of a man without skin, shown at the Romanian Athenaeum in 1903. He received his diploma in 1902. From Bucharest he set out west, mostly on foot, through Vienna, Munich and Basel, and arrived in Paris on 14 July 1904. At first he washed dishes at the Brasserie Chartier. In 1905 he passed the entrance examination for the École des Beaux-Arts, studied under Antonin Mercié and held a Romanian scholarship until 1908. In 1906 he exhibited for the first time, at the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and the Salon d’Automne. In March 1907 he became an assistant to Auguste Rodin but left after a few weeks, saying: “Nothing grows in the shade of large trees.”

Around then he stopped modelling for casting and began carving stone and wood directly, although he went on making plaster and bronze versions. From 1908 he rented a studio on rue du Montparnasse, near Edward Steichen. From 1909 he was friends with Modigliani and also knew Léger, Marcel Duchamp, Apollinaire and Henri Rousseau. His home was open to Romanian musicians and artists in Paris, and Romanian was spoken in the studio. In 1910–1911 the Hungarian painter Margit Pogány sat for him; he carved the first marble version of Mademoiselle Pogany from memory and completed it in 1912. A version of The Kiss from 1909 has stood since 1911 on the grave of Tatiana Rachewskaia in Montparnasse Cemetery.

In 1913 five of his sculptures were shown at the Armory Show in New York; the press laughed and drew caricatures. In 1914 Steichen arranged his first solo exhibition in the United States, at Alfred Stieglitz’s gallery 291. The lawyer and collector John Quinn bought works from him until his own death in 1924. During the First World War Brâncuși stayed in Paris, refused military service and in November 1917 received a permanent exemption. In 1916 he moved into 8 Impasse Ronsin and later took number 11 as well, joining the studios by cutting openings through the walls.

In January 1920 the organizers of the Salon des Indépendants removed Princess X, finding a phallic suggestion in its shape. Léger and other friends protested, and the sculpture was returned to the exhibition. From 1919 to 1925 Brâncuși was friends with the composer Erik Satie. Under the impression of the symphonic drama Socrate he carved the wooden Socrates in 1922. In 1921 Man Ray helped him set up a photographic darkroom: he photographed his sculptures in different light and recorded their relation to the surrounding space. The New York magazine The Little Review devoted an issue to him in September 1921, with an essay by Ezra Pound.

In 1926, on a trip to the United States, customs officials taxed the bronze Bird in Space as a metal manufactured article. The case Brancusi v. United States ended in 1928 with the sculpture recognized as a work of art.

In 1937 Arethia Tătărescu, president of the National League of Women of Gorj, invited him to create a monument to the Romanians killed defending Târgu Jiu in 1916. He expanded the plan: the Table of Silence, the Avenue of Chairs and the Gate of the Kiss by the Jiu River, and on a hill at the eastern end the Endless Column, 29.33 metres high. Together with the engineer Ștefan Georgescu-Gorjan he supervised the installation, and the ensemble was inaugurated in October 1938. In 1938 the Maharaja of Indore invited him to India; a temple with three versions of Bird in Space was planned, but it was never built.

He spent the whole occupation in Paris and went on working. In 1947 the Romanian painters Natalia Dumitresco and Alexandre Istrati began helping him; he named them his heirs. On 13 June 1952 he received French citizenship. After fracturing the neck of his femur in January 1955 he made no more new sculptures and concentrated on arranging those he had already made. In 1956 he bequeathed his studio and everything in it to the French state, requiring that it be reconstructed as it was at the time of his death.

Brâncuși died on 16 March 1957 in Paris and was buried in Montparnasse Cemetery. In 1990 he was posthumously elected to the Romanian Academy. The reconstructed studio beside the Centre Pompidou, designed by Renzo Piano, opened in 1997.