Lot Essay
Sidney Geist has confirmed the authenticity of this bronze.
Mademoiselle Pogany II is the central version of one of the most celebrated themes in Brancusi's oeuvre. It is the second of three portraits which Brancusi executed between 1912 and 1931 of Margit Pogany, a Hungarian art student whom he met in Paris in 1910 (see fig. 1).
In 1952 Margit Pogany recalled her relations with Brancusi:
For several years I studied painting in Paris. It was there that I met Mr. Brancusi. I cannot remember how often we had met when one day he asked me to come to his studio and see some work he had just finished. He seemed very eager to show it, wanting me to come that very day. I went with a friend of mine and he showed us his sculptures. Among them was a head of white marble which attracted me strongly. I felt it was me, although it had none of my features. It was all eyes. Brancusi... was awfully pleased I recognized myself.
After the first visit I used to see quite a lot of Brancusi...I wanted very much to have my portrait done by Brancusi and asked whether he would do it. He was greatly pleased by my proposal [and] knowing that I was to leave Paris shortly he asked me for a few sittings. I sat for him several times. Each time he began a new bust in clay. Each of these was beautiful and a wonderful likeness, and each time I begged him to keep it and use it for the definite bust--but he only laughed and threw it back in the boxful of clay that stood in the corner of the studio." (Quoted in S. Geist, exh. cat., Constantin Brancusi, Edobori Gallery, Osaka, 1989)
These sittings, held in Brancusi's studio at 54 rue du Montparnasse in December 1910 and January 1911, were the starting point of the Mademoiselle Pogany series, which was to preoccupy the sculptor over the next twenty years. Brancusi destroyed the clay studies he made in Pogany's presence, and only a few drawings survive from these sittings, examples of which are housed in the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Graphische Sammlung, Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart. After the model returned to Hungary, Brancusi carved Mademoiselle Pogany I from memory in 1912 (fig. 3). Comparison with the photograph of the sitter reveals how, at this stage, Brancusi was concerned to create a life-like image of his model, establishing the main characteristics of the Pogany series by concentrating on her large eyes and smooth, austere coiffure, creating a twisting composition unique in the sculptor's oeuvre.
Seven years later, Brancusi returned to the subject, having developed an interest in the simplification of the human head in works such as Danaïde of 1913 and La muse of 1918. Mademoiselle Pogany II represents a significant development from Brancusi's initial rendering of the motif, as he boldly condensed and stylized his original design.
The result shows an unprecedented freedom and audacity... The iconographic constituents are reinterpreted in accord with new sculptural priorities. Thus, the two arms folded beneath the chin are compressed into one, almost unrecognizable as an arm... Behind the chignon, neck and shoulders are translated as an abstract cascade of spirals. The eyes are absorbed into the oval of the face, and the eyelids project in delicate ridges. (M. Rowell, exh. cat., Constantin Brancusi 1876-1957, Grand Palais, Paris, 1995, p. 176)
Or as Henri-Pierre Roché stated in a letter to John Quinn dated February 1, 1920, "[this] extraordinary female head shows a breakthrough in Brancusi's evolution."
Mademoiselle Pogany herself believed the second portrait to be the most significant of the series, remarking:
Brancusi made a second bust also both in marble and bronze. It is the one known by reproductions. I saw a bronze copy of it in his studio a good many years later in 1925. I had not been in Paris for 12 years, owing to the first world war and other reasons. By that time Brancusi had reached, after much suffering, the peak he had striven for and, although not yet known to many, he was already appreciated by the chosen few. (Quoted in exh. cat., op. cit., Osaka, 1989)
In 1931 Brancusi carved a third and final Pogany for the American collectors Walter and Louise Arensberg, more than twenty years after meeting Margit Pogany (fig. 4). He chose to refine some of the details of Mademoiselle Pogany II, most notably by continuing the stepped areas of the chignon to the bottom of the neck and by simplifying the two arms into one.
All three Pogany portraits were originally carved in marble before Brancusi cast them in bronze, which was then highly polished. Brancusi translated some of his marble sculptures into bronze as early as 1910, and would often remodel or polish these casts for months on end.
Light preoccupied Brancusi throughout his lifetime, both in his sculpture and photography. Whether in the direct sheen of marble, or in the brilliance of polished bronze, his tireless quest was to catch its reflection: "We do not see real life except by its reflections," he wrote in 1919. His words invite a further step in interpreting the singular phenomenon of his use of a high polish". (M. Rowell, op. cit., p. 47)
It is significant to note that Brancusi kept a bronze cast of Mademoiselle Pogany II in his studio for several years, and that he chose to photograph it on many occasions. A celebrated series of six prints exists which Brancusi took in 1920-1921. They reveal his concern for the spiral composition of the bronze, showing the work from six different angles while emphasizing the reflective qualities of its surface. These images were selected to appear in the autumn 1921 issue of The Little Review dedicated to Brancusi and edited by Ezra Pound; the images prompted the American critic Henry McBride to declare, "Who wielded the camera is not stated, but the various versions of Mlle. Pogany are entirely worthy of Mr. Man Ray."
The significance of the bronze casts of Mademoiselle Pogany II is also made clear by their inclusion in several of the most important early exhibitions of Brancusi's work. Although he lived in Paris for many years, all his solo exhibitions, with the exception of the retrospective held in Bucharest the year before his death, took place in the United States. In 1920, the avant-garde collector John Quinn purchased a bronze cast of Mademoiselle Pogany II, now in the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo. He also oversaw its appearance in shows such as the Exhibition of Contemporary French Art, held at the Sculptor's Gallery in New York from March to April of 1922; Brancusi, held at the Brummer Gallery in New York from November to December of 1926; and The International Exhibition of Modern Art, held at the Art Gallery of Toronto in April of 1927.
The present work originally belonged to the painter and photographer Edward Steichen, who most likely received it as a gift from the artist during his stay in Paris in the 1920s. Steichen first encountered Brancusi's work in America, and he initiated an exhibition of it at Alfred Stieglitz's gallery in New York in 1914. Steichen photographed Brancusi in his studio on several occasions (fig. 2); it was Steichen, along with Marcel Duchamp, who filed the infamous protest in 1927 against the classification of works by Brancusi by U.S. Customs as "miscellaneous," rather than as works of art.
Besides the present work, there are four bronze casts of Mademoiselle Pogany II, which Brancusi executed between 1920 and 1925. These are housed in the Museo de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven and the Norton Gallery and School of Art, Palm Beach.
(fig. 1) Margit Pogany, 1910
(fig. 2) Brancusi in his studio, Paris, 1925
(Photo: Edward Steichen)
(fig. 3) Constantin Brancusi, Mademoiselle Pogany I, 1912
Museum of Art, Philadelphia
(Photo: Constantin Brancusi)
(fig. 4) Constantin Brancusi, Mademoiselle Pogany III, 1931
Museum of Art, Philadelphia
(Photo: Constantin Brancusi)
Mademoiselle Pogany II is the central version of one of the most celebrated themes in Brancusi's oeuvre. It is the second of three portraits which Brancusi executed between 1912 and 1931 of Margit Pogany, a Hungarian art student whom he met in Paris in 1910 (see fig. 1).
In 1952 Margit Pogany recalled her relations with Brancusi:
For several years I studied painting in Paris. It was there that I met Mr. Brancusi. I cannot remember how often we had met when one day he asked me to come to his studio and see some work he had just finished. He seemed very eager to show it, wanting me to come that very day. I went with a friend of mine and he showed us his sculptures. Among them was a head of white marble which attracted me strongly. I felt it was me, although it had none of my features. It was all eyes. Brancusi... was awfully pleased I recognized myself.
After the first visit I used to see quite a lot of Brancusi...I wanted very much to have my portrait done by Brancusi and asked whether he would do it. He was greatly pleased by my proposal [and] knowing that I was to leave Paris shortly he asked me for a few sittings. I sat for him several times. Each time he began a new bust in clay. Each of these was beautiful and a wonderful likeness, and each time I begged him to keep it and use it for the definite bust--but he only laughed and threw it back in the boxful of clay that stood in the corner of the studio." (Quoted in S. Geist, exh. cat., Constantin Brancusi, Edobori Gallery, Osaka, 1989)
These sittings, held in Brancusi's studio at 54 rue du Montparnasse in December 1910 and January 1911, were the starting point of the Mademoiselle Pogany series, which was to preoccupy the sculptor over the next twenty years. Brancusi destroyed the clay studies he made in Pogany's presence, and only a few drawings survive from these sittings, examples of which are housed in the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Graphische Sammlung, Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart. After the model returned to Hungary, Brancusi carved Mademoiselle Pogany I from memory in 1912 (fig. 3). Comparison with the photograph of the sitter reveals how, at this stage, Brancusi was concerned to create a life-like image of his model, establishing the main characteristics of the Pogany series by concentrating on her large eyes and smooth, austere coiffure, creating a twisting composition unique in the sculptor's oeuvre.
Seven years later, Brancusi returned to the subject, having developed an interest in the simplification of the human head in works such as Danaïde of 1913 and La muse of 1918. Mademoiselle Pogany II represents a significant development from Brancusi's initial rendering of the motif, as he boldly condensed and stylized his original design.
The result shows an unprecedented freedom and audacity... The iconographic constituents are reinterpreted in accord with new sculptural priorities. Thus, the two arms folded beneath the chin are compressed into one, almost unrecognizable as an arm... Behind the chignon, neck and shoulders are translated as an abstract cascade of spirals. The eyes are absorbed into the oval of the face, and the eyelids project in delicate ridges. (M. Rowell, exh. cat., Constantin Brancusi 1876-1957, Grand Palais, Paris, 1995, p. 176)
Or as Henri-Pierre Roché stated in a letter to John Quinn dated February 1, 1920, "[this] extraordinary female head shows a breakthrough in Brancusi's evolution."
Mademoiselle Pogany herself believed the second portrait to be the most significant of the series, remarking:
Brancusi made a second bust also both in marble and bronze. It is the one known by reproductions. I saw a bronze copy of it in his studio a good many years later in 1925. I had not been in Paris for 12 years, owing to the first world war and other reasons. By that time Brancusi had reached, after much suffering, the peak he had striven for and, although not yet known to many, he was already appreciated by the chosen few. (Quoted in exh. cat., op. cit., Osaka, 1989)
In 1931 Brancusi carved a third and final Pogany for the American collectors Walter and Louise Arensberg, more than twenty years after meeting Margit Pogany (fig. 4). He chose to refine some of the details of Mademoiselle Pogany II, most notably by continuing the stepped areas of the chignon to the bottom of the neck and by simplifying the two arms into one.
All three Pogany portraits were originally carved in marble before Brancusi cast them in bronze, which was then highly polished. Brancusi translated some of his marble sculptures into bronze as early as 1910, and would often remodel or polish these casts for months on end.
Light preoccupied Brancusi throughout his lifetime, both in his sculpture and photography. Whether in the direct sheen of marble, or in the brilliance of polished bronze, his tireless quest was to catch its reflection: "We do not see real life except by its reflections," he wrote in 1919. His words invite a further step in interpreting the singular phenomenon of his use of a high polish". (M. Rowell, op. cit., p. 47)
It is significant to note that Brancusi kept a bronze cast of Mademoiselle Pogany II in his studio for several years, and that he chose to photograph it on many occasions. A celebrated series of six prints exists which Brancusi took in 1920-1921. They reveal his concern for the spiral composition of the bronze, showing the work from six different angles while emphasizing the reflective qualities of its surface. These images were selected to appear in the autumn 1921 issue of The Little Review dedicated to Brancusi and edited by Ezra Pound; the images prompted the American critic Henry McBride to declare, "Who wielded the camera is not stated, but the various versions of Mlle. Pogany are entirely worthy of Mr. Man Ray."
The significance of the bronze casts of Mademoiselle Pogany II is also made clear by their inclusion in several of the most important early exhibitions of Brancusi's work. Although he lived in Paris for many years, all his solo exhibitions, with the exception of the retrospective held in Bucharest the year before his death, took place in the United States. In 1920, the avant-garde collector John Quinn purchased a bronze cast of Mademoiselle Pogany II, now in the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo. He also oversaw its appearance in shows such as the Exhibition of Contemporary French Art, held at the Sculptor's Gallery in New York from March to April of 1922; Brancusi, held at the Brummer Gallery in New York from November to December of 1926; and The International Exhibition of Modern Art, held at the Art Gallery of Toronto in April of 1927.
The present work originally belonged to the painter and photographer Edward Steichen, who most likely received it as a gift from the artist during his stay in Paris in the 1920s. Steichen first encountered Brancusi's work in America, and he initiated an exhibition of it at Alfred Stieglitz's gallery in New York in 1914. Steichen photographed Brancusi in his studio on several occasions (fig. 2); it was Steichen, along with Marcel Duchamp, who filed the infamous protest in 1927 against the classification of works by Brancusi by U.S. Customs as "miscellaneous," rather than as works of art.
Besides the present work, there are four bronze casts of Mademoiselle Pogany II, which Brancusi executed between 1920 and 1925. These are housed in the Museo de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven and the Norton Gallery and School of Art, Palm Beach.
(fig. 1) Margit Pogany, 1910
(fig. 2) Brancusi in his studio, Paris, 1925
(Photo: Edward Steichen)
(fig. 3) Constantin Brancusi, Mademoiselle Pogany I, 1912
Museum of Art, Philadelphia
(Photo: Constantin Brancusi)
(fig. 4) Constantin Brancusi, Mademoiselle Pogany III, 1931
Museum of Art, Philadelphia
(Photo: Constantin Brancusi)