In the first decades of the twentieth century, artists throughout Europe developed a radical style of art that reimagined the painting in terms of line, plane, and color. This new abstract art broke with tradition as it set aside a need for recognizable subjects. By removing specificity or representation, some practitioners of abstraction sought to reflect an array of new ideas relating to science and spirituality.
Among this burgeoning avant-garde, Constantin Brâncuși created imaginative sculptures that evoke rather than resemble their subjects. Drawing on Romanian woodworking traditions he had learned in his youth, Brâncuși directly carved his works from marble, limestone, and wood. He frequently made multiple versions, returning to the same subjects—birds, newborn babies, women’s heads—again and again. Over the course of a five-decade career, Brâncuși increasingly pushed his sculptural forms toward abstraction.
Organized by Ann Temkin, The Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture with Rachel Remick, Curatorial Assistant.
