A Contribution to Brancusi Chronology

Abstract

If one accepts a breaking away from traditional Western ways of representation as the starting point of modern sculpture, then its formative years are undoubtedly 1905 to 1910. To establish precisely how this change occurred, one would have to determine what was available to young sculptors during those years to feed their new interests. What did they see in salons and galleries? What interaction took place between young avant-garde artists, such as Picasso, Nadelman, Brancusi, Modigliani, and Archipenko, all of whom had recently settled in Paris?¹ When and how did each of them assimilate outside influences, such as African art, or fresh elements of the immediate past, such as Art Nouveau and Medardo Rosso's sculpture?² In order to clarify a segment of this critical period, I have attempted to establish a chronological classification of Brancusi's early works, made possible by research conducted since my review of Ionel Jianou's catalogue raisonné.³ In the following catalogue, I have assigned dates to many undated works on the basis of either documentary evidence, such as inclusion in exhibitions and letters, or on the grounds of stylistic analogies with the few dated pieces.