Brancusi, The Birth of Modern Sculpture in Amsterdam
H'ART Museum presents: Brancusi, The Birth of Modern Sculpture through January 18, 2026. For the first time, a leading collection of artworks by Constantin Brancusi (1876–1957) is coming to Amsterdam. The artist (Romanian-French sculptor) is regarded worldwide as the founder of modern sculpture. The exhibition was created in collaboration with the Parisian museum Centre Pompidou. In addition to more than 31 masterpieces, including the original pedestals designed by Brancusi himself, photographs and films by his hand are also on display. Do you know his artworks, mostly in the shape of an egg? Do you have Brancusi stamps in your collection?
Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957)
Youth Brâncusi was born the son of a farmer on February 19, 1876, in Hobita Gorj, near Târgu Jiu (Carpathians, Romania). Around 1930, he created a monumental open-air ensemble in this location. He had a difficult childhood. His father died when he was only nine years old, which meant that the already poor family could no longer afford Constantin's school fees. At the age of eleven, he left his parents' home to wander.
He accepted the most diverse odd jobs, eventually arriving in Craiova, where he stayed in an inn for a while. There, he was put to work washing dishes and performing other inn chores. In 1894, he started working for a barrel maker in Craiova, who taught him woodworking. At the same time, he also attended the School of Applied Arts there. After two years, he grew tired of it. He decided to continue his youth as a vagabond. He earned a living by doing odd jobs here and there.
Artistry
At the age of 18, he went to the School of Arts and Crafts in Craiova. There he learned to make wood sculptures. His talent and artistic qualities were soon noticed. When he was twenty-two, thanks to a scholarship, he was able to enroll in the School of Fine Arts (Bucharest), where he studied sculpture. He obtained his diploma on September 24, 1902. His first works were: Laöcoon, General Davila, Nude (relief), The Flayed.
At the age of 28, he concluded that there was no future for him in Romania. He wanted to go to Paris, the art center of Europe. Due to a lack of money, he traveled on foot. He arrived in Paris in 1904 via Munich, Rorschach, Zurich, and Basel, and studied there from 1905 at the sculpture studio of Antonin Mercié at the École des Beaux Arts. In 1907, he met the sculptor August Rodin, who was already well-known both at home and abroad at that time. Rodin was impressed by the plaster and bronze sculptures that Brâncusi exhibited at the 17th Salon of the Société nationale des Beaux-Arts, and Brâncusi became his assistant. However, after one month, he decided to stop working with Rodin. He wanted to prove that he was a great artist himself, and believed that he could not do so as long as he worked for Rodin. (Rien ne pousse à l'ombre d'un grand arbre) Around that time, Brâncusi created his first work. Not in marble like Rodin, but in stone, an unusual material for the time. He developed the same theme as Rodin, namely Le baiser (The Kiss).
In 1909 he met Amedeo Modigliani, with whom he became friends and who began to sculpt under his influence. He also visited regularly Henri RousseauIn 1912, he traveled to the United States with Fernand Léger and Marcel Duchamp. He hoped for a glorious life there, but the American public was shocked by his pure forms. In 1913, he began working with wood. This held emotional value for him as a former barrel maker. In that year, he also created *Les colonnes sans fin*. It symbolizes the Last Judgment but simultaneously evokes something infinite.
In 1920, his sculpture *La Princesse X* was removed from the Salon des Indépendants for being obscene and phallic. In 1925, his first extended stay in the United States began. In 1926, a major retrospective of Brâncusi's work took place in New York. However, US Customs did not consider his *L'oiseau d'or* to be a work of art and accused him of metal smuggling. In 1928, his second stay in the United States began, following the legal dispute with US Customs. In 1955–56, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York exhibited 59 sculptures, ten drawings, and several gouaches. Shortly before his death on March 16, 1957, Brâncusi was naturalized as a Frenchman. He died in his studio, Impasse Ronsin, Paris. On March 19, he was buried in the Montparnasse Cemetery.
To shape
“In art, simplicity is not a goal, but by approaching the true meaning of things, one arrives at simplicity despite oneself.” This clearly characterizes the style he would maintain throughout his life. He attempts to eliminate all superfluous elements. Brâncusi paid attention not only to nature but also to the characteristic forms of Romanian peasant culture (columns and doorposts executed in geometric shapes, the screws and beams of rural wine presses, hand mills, and grooved millstones). These objects, which he sometimes used unchanged, such as in some pedestals, are not his only source of inspiration. The influence of African sculpture and the polished, regular forms of machinery also appealed to him.
In essence, Brâncusi is a Platonic artist. He refines the same forms in an endeavor to achieve perfection. His pursuit of the essence means that he does not content himself with the ephemeral, superficial phenomena that surround him. A second characteristic of Brâncusi's art is the feeling he possesses for his materials, inherited from the culture of his origins. Contrary to the custom prevalent at the time of employing workmen to cut the material, Brâncusi worked with the material himself from 1910 onwards.
It is also typical that he creates various artworks with which he is ultimately not satisfied. For example, Baroness Renée Frachon posed for three years for the sculpture *La muse endormie*. He also used photography to strive for absolute perfection. This allowed him to depict his sculptures in special ways, in their play of light and shadow, and from different angles.
The egg
The most famous work by Brâncusi on display in the Netherlands is *The Beginning of the World*, also known as *Brâncusi’s Egg*: a bronze sculpture in the shape of an egg, which, upon closer inspection, turns out to be completely asymmetrical. According to the artist, this form represents perfect beauty, both in a spatial and a figurative sense, because all life originates from an egg (cell). This idea is emphasized by the sculpture of a child's head that he created at the same time, which is exhibited together with the egg. The artwork is part of the permanent collection of the Kröller-Müller Museum in De Hoge Veluwe National Park. There are more of his works in that museum.
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