1912, White marble; limestone block, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia. Exhibited at
the 1913 Armory Show.
Brâncuși grew up in the village of Hobiţa, Gorj, near Târgu Jiu, close to Romania's Carpathian
Mountains, an area known for its rich tradition of folk crafts, particularly woodcarving.
Geometric patterns of the region are seen in his later works.
His parents Nicolae and Maria Brâncuși were poor peasants who earned a meager living through
back-breaking labor; from the age of seven, Constantin herded the family's flock of sheep. He
showed talent for carving objects out of wood, and often ran away from home to escape the
bullying of his father and older brothers.
At the age of nine, Brâncuși left the village to work in the nearest large town. At 11 he went into
the service of a grocer in Slatina; and then he became a domestic in a public house in Craiova
where he remained for several years. When he was 18, Brâncuși created a violin by hand with
materials he found around his workplace. Impressed by Brâncuși's talent for carving, an
industrialist entered him in the Craiova School of Arts and Crafts (școala de arte și meserii),
where he pursued his love for woodworking, graduating with honors in 1898.[2]
He then enrolled in the Bucharest School of Fine Arts, where he received academic training in
sculpture. He worked hard, and quickly distinguished himself as talented. One of his earliest
surviving works, under the guidance of his anatomy teacher, Dimitrie Gerota, is a masterfully
rendered écorché (statue of a man with skin removed to reveal the muscles underneath) which
was exhibited at the Romanian Athenaeum in 1903. Though just an anatomical study, it
foreshadowed the sculptor's later efforts to reveal essence rather than merely copy outward
appearance.
Working in Paris
Constantin Brâncuși, 1907-08, The Kiss. Exhibited in
1913 at the Armory Show and published in the Chicago
Tribune, 25 March 1913.
In 1903, Brâncuși traveled to Munich, and from there
to Paris. In Paris, he was welcomed by the community of
artists and intellectuals brimming with new ideas.[4] He
worked for two years in the workshop of Antonin
Magazine Without Borders
Issue n°1
21/45