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We are closed on Bank Holiday Mondays

Please note the house will be temporarily closed for 4 weeks from 14 March 2024

© Succession Brancusi - All rights reserved. ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2024

Photograph

Oiseau dans l’espace (Bird in Space), 1926-27

Constantin Brâncuși
Black and white photograph
243 x 181 mm
[CB 7]
Not on display

About the artist

Born 1876 – Died 1957

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Brancusi was famously dissatisfied with photographs of his works taken by anyone other than himself. This in spite of the fact that his sculptures were at different times photographed by masters of the medium such as Man Ray, Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen.

The main reason behind this diffidence seems to be Brancusi’s use of photography as an integral part to his creative process. In his relentless search for formal purity, the sculptor used photographs as the means to control the positioning and lighting of the works, thus fixing an ‘ideal’ view for them. Once he felt he had achieved formal perfection in three dimensions through sculpture, photography allowed him to gain control over the fourth dimension, time. It could be argued, from this point of view, that Brancusi’s photographs represent the culmination of his artistic research, paradoxically, for a sculptor, in two dimensions.

Oiseau dans l’espace belongs in a group of works exploring the theme of birds and flight, which had its beginnings around 1911 with Maiastra. The Bird in Space series spanned between 1924 and 1941. It saw a progressive development in the direction of verticality (achieved by increasing height and decreasing depth of the work) and de-materialisation of the figure, suggested by the use of light over reflecting surfaces (an aspect particularly highlighted by the photographs). The measurement inscribed on the verso of the Kettle’s Yard image (53 inches) suggests that this is one of the two versions in polished bronze of the work, made in 1926 and 1927.

Provenance: gift of the artist to H.S. (Jim) Ede, c. 1934 (?)