CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI (Pestiani, Romania, 1876 - Paris, 1957).
"Anatomy Model", ca.1902.
Photograph. Print on gelatin silver.
Provenance: Juan Naranjo.
Descriptions on the back, written in pencil.
Measurements: 16.5 x 5 cm. (photograph); 32,5 x 30,5 cm.(frame).
This photograph is part of one of Brancusi's first projects, which he carried out under the guidance of his anatomy teacher, Dimitri Gerota: an "écorché" representation (a statue of a man whose skin has been removed to reveal the muscles underneath) which was exhibited at the Romanian Athenaeum in 1903.
Constantin Brancusi began his studies in sculpture at the Bucharest Academy and perfected his skills in Vienna and Munich, before settling in Paris in 1904, where he befriended Amadeo Modigliani and Auguste Rodin and developed most of his career. He had a difficult start, during which he suffered hardship and privation, but after the First World War he established himself as one of the great sculptors of the artistic avant-garde. With the elimination of all accessory attributes, he progressively evolved towards a greater formal essentiality in order to create pure and elemental forms. In his works, Brancusi sought a pure, spiritual beauty, expressed through his favourite figures (the bird, the egg, the female heads) and emphasised by polishing the materials (bronze, marble and occasionally wood). He made several trips to the United States, where he held successful solo exhibitions. In 1937 he returned to Romania to carry out some commissions, such as the Endless Column, almost thirty metres high, for the public park of Tirgu Jiu, near his hometown. That same year he went to India to design the Temple of Meditation, commissioned by the maharaja of Indore. Mademoiselle Pogany, The Newborn and Bird in Space, three of his most appreciated creations, are other examples of Brancusi's quest for pure form that led him to the limits of abstraction, although without completely abandoning figurativism; in any case, his departure from nineteenth-century realist canons paved the way for the abstract sculpture of artists such as Jean Arp and Henry Moore.