Constantin Brancusi Photographs

 

 

If we limit ourselves to exact reproduction, we halt the evolution of the spirit.

— Constantin Brancusi

 

Thaddaeus Ropac London presents the first UK exhibition dedicated to Constantin Brancusi’s photographs in over two decades – and the artist’s first solo exhibition in London since his landmark Tate Modern show in 2004. The exhibition brings together three decades of the Romanian artist’s photographic work, the majority of which are shown in London for the first time. In 2026, the 150th anniversary of the modernist sculptor’s birth will be marked by a programme of institutional exhibitions worldwide, including Brancusi, The Birth of Modern Sculpture at the H’ART Museum in Amsterdam and Constantin Brancusi at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, both organised in collaboration with the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

 

 

Princesse X (Princess X), 1921

Vintage gelatin silver print

24 x 18 cm (9.45 x 7.09 in)

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Princesse X (Princess X), 1921 Vintage gelatin silver print 24 x 18 cm (9.45 x 7.09 in)

Femme se regardant dans un miroir (Woman Looking into a Mirror), 1909–14
Vintage gelatin silver print
29.7 × 23.8 cm (11.69 × 9.37 in)

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Femme se regardant dans un miroir (Woman Looking into a Mirror), 1909–14 Vintage gelatin silver print 29.7 × 23.8 cm (11.69 × 9.37 in)

Photography formed an integral part of Brancusi’s practice, as both a documentary tool for his sculptural works, and an artistic medium in its own right. Some of Brancusi’s sculptures survive only through photographs, including Femme se regardant dans un miroir (Woman Looking into a Mirror) (1909–14), which was later adapted into Princesse X (Princess X) (1921, Centre Pompidou, Paris), his controversially phallic portrait of psychoanalyst Marie Bonaparte. In 1956, Brancusi bequeathed his entire studio to the French State, including a significant body of photographs, which later became the focus of an exhibition presented alongside his first major retrospective in France at the Centre Pompidou in 1995. 

 

Laocoon (Laocoön), 1905–20
Vintage gelatin silver print
29.2 x 22.2 cm (11.5 x 8.74 in) 

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La Table du silence, Târgu Jiu (The Table of silence, Târgu Jiu), 1938

Vintage gelatin silver print
24.1 x 29.5 cm (9.49 x 11.61 in) 

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The artist began experimenting with photography following his arrival in Paris in 1904. Immersed in the city’s vibrant avant-garde scene, he befriended numerous photographers including Edward Steichen, Alfred Stieglitz and Man Ray. In 1917, Brancusi met John Quinn, a prominent collector who, crucially, acquired many of his sculptures through photographs. 

Vue générale de La Colonne sans fin de Târgu Jiu (General view of Endless Column, Târgu Jiu), 1938
Vintage gelatin silver print
18 x 23.9 cm (7.09 x 9.41 in)

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Constantin Brancusi and Man Ray
La Colonne sans fin (Endless Column), 1927

Photogram, vintage gelatin silver print

45.5 × 57.9 cm (18 × 22.8 in)

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The relationship was pivotal in transforming Brancusi’s photographic practice from a spontaneous to a systematic creative endeavour; during his lifetime, he would only allow his sculptures to be reproduced with his own photographs, believing that only these images ‘could convey the artist’s emotional exchange with his creation,’ as curator Elizabeth A. Brown has written. As such, the exhibition offers an invaluable insight into the evolution of Brancusi’s sculptural language, tracing his radical purification of form – from his early Laocoon (Laocoön) (1905–20), created while still a young student in Bucharest, to his monumental sculptural ensemble at Târgu Jiu in Romania (1937–38), which became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2024.

Tête d’enfant endormi et Le Nouveau-Né II (Head of a Sleeping Child and The Newborn II), 1920
Vintage gelatin silver print

18 x 24 cm (7.09 x 9.45 in)

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While Brancusi’s photographs function as records of his oeuvre, they also enabled him to sculpt with light, capturing the reflections and patinas on the surfaces of his works. Through photography, he could enhance the visual impact of his sculptures – as Man Ray described in his autobiography, ‘one of his golden birds had been caught with the sunrays striking it so that a sort of aurora radiated from it, giving the work an explosive character.’ With the camera, Brancusi generated bursts of light that lend his works a metamorphic quality, and, as curator Michel Gauthier observes, ‘allow the sculpture to escape its strict contours, to live in space beyond itself.’ 

Mademoiselle Pogany I, vue de face (Mademoiselle Pogany I, frontal view), 1914/20
Vintage gelatin silver print
30 x 22 cm (11.81 x 8.66 in)

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Mademoiselle Pogany I, vue de face (Mademoiselle Pogany I, frontal view), 1914/20 Vintage gelatin silver print 30 x 22 cm (11.81 x 8.66 in)

Mademoiselle Pogany II, marbre et bronze (Mademoiselle Pogany II, marble and bronze), 1920
Vintage gelatin silver print
23 x 17 cm (9.06 x 6.69 in)

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Mademoiselle Pogany II, marbre et bronze (Mademoiselle Pogany II, marble and bronze), 1920 Vintage gelatin silver print 23 x 17 cm (9.06 x 6.69 in)

The photographs on display invite the viewer into the sanctified environment of Brancusi’s studio on Impasse Ronsin in Paris’s 15th arrondissement, which he considered ‘a living space for his sculptures,’ as Brown writes. Acutely attuned to the relationships between his works and their surroundings, Brancusi continually reconfigured his sculptures into ‘mobile groups’ within his atelier, exploring the infinite possibilities of their arrangement and capturing their synergies through photography. In Mademoiselle Pogany II & III (1920) two versions of his sculpture Mademoiselle Pogany are staged so that they appear to bow towards each other, immortalised in eternal dialogue from their respective pedestals.

Mademoiselle Pogany II, vue de trois-quarts (Mademoiselle Pogany II, three-quarter view), 1920

Vintage gelatin silver print

22.5 x 16.8 cm (8.86 x 6.61 in)

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Nature morte avec Le Nouveau-Né, Léda et La Sorcière (Still Life with The Newborn, Leda and The Sorceress), 1934
Unique vintage gelatin silver print
23.9 x 18.8 cm (9.41 x 7.4 in)

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Brancusi’s photographs are ‘true portraits’, as Brown writes. ‘Just like the most striking portraits, they reveal the different facets of the sculpture’s personality and reveal its particular sensibility.’ This is as evident in the photograph Léda (Leda) (c. 1921), in which Brancusi masterfully captures the sensuousness of the smooth marble forms, as it is in his Autoportrait avec une cigarette dans le train Paris-Le Havre (Self-Portrait with a Cigarette on the Paris-Le Havre Train) (c. 1933), or even Nature morte avec Le Nouveau-Né, Léda et La Sorcière (Still Life with The Newborn, Leda and The Sorceress) (1934), described by art historian Friedrich Teja Bach as a ‘symbolic tableau’ and the only version of this image known to exist today. With each photograph, Brancusi distils the ineffable essence of his subject.

Léda (Leda), c. 1921
Vintage gelatin silver print
19.3 x 22.5 cm (7.6 x 8.86 in)

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Autoportrait avec une cigarette dans le train Paris-Le Havre (Self-Portrait with a Cigarette on the Paris-Le-Havre Train), c. 1933
Vintage gelatin silver print
18 x 15.5 cm (7.09 x 6.1 in)

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La Porte du Baiser, Târgu Jiu (The Gate of the Kiss, Târgu Jiu), 1937–38
Vintage gelatin silver print
17.7 x 18.8 cm (6.97 x 7.4 in)

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Maquette pour La Porte du Baiser, Târgu Jiu (Maquette for The Gate of the Kiss, Târgu Jiu), 1935–37
Vintage gelatin silver print
39.6 x 29.6 cm (15.59 x 11.65 in)

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Constantin Brancusi is considered one of the greatest sculptors of the 20th century. He was born in Pestisani, Romania in 1876. After attending the School of Arts and Crafts in Craiova (1894–1898) and the National School of Fine Arts in Bucharest (1898–1902), Brancusi left Romania in 1904, travelling across Europe before settling in Paris, where he pursued his studies at the École des beaux-arts until 1907. Brancusi’s work was noticed by Auguste Rodin at the Salon d’Automne of 1906, and the acclaimed sculptor offered him work in his studio. Their conception of sculpture would diverge; while Rodin modelled his sculptures in plaster or clay, seeking to impose form onto his material, Brancusi carved his works directly in wood or stone, striving to reveal ‘the cosmic essence of matter.’

In 1913, five of Brancusi’s sculptures were displayed in the Armory Show in New York and, the following year, Edward Steichen and Alfred Stieglitz organised his first solo show at the Photo Secession Gallery in New York. In 1920, Brancusi’s suggestive sculpture Princesse X (Princess X) was refused from the Salon des indépendants, where his work L’Oiseau d’or (Golden Bird) took pride of place nonetheless. In 1926, his Colonne sans fin (Endless Column) was installed in situ in Steichen’s garden in Voulangis. In 1928, Brancusi won a landmark case against American customs authorities, who had denied the status of L’Oiseau dans l’espace (Bird in Space) as a work of art – a verdict that fundamentally redefined the categories of sculpture and art more broadly. In 1935, he was commissioned to create the monumental sculptural ensemble at Târgu Jiu in Romania (1937–38), which became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2024. Brancusi died in Paris in 1957, bequeathing his studio and the entirety of its contents to the French state.

Brancusi has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions, notably at the Centre Pompidou, Paris (1995, 2011, 2024); Tate Modern, London (2004); and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2004). Exhibitions dedicated to his photographic work have been held at the Centre Pompidou in 1995 and 2011 and at the National Museum of Art of Romania in Bucharest in 2006. Brancusi’s work belongs to prestigious institutional collections such as The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Art Institute of Chicago; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Tate, London; and Centre Pompidou, Paris, which reconstructed Brancusi’s studio to house its impressive collection including more than 1600 negatives and original photographic prints by the artist.

  

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