CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI (1876-1957)

Details

CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI (1876-1957)

L'Orgueil
signed and stamped on the right side 'C. BRANCUSI C. VALSUANI CIRE PERDUE'--bronze with golden brown patina
Height: 12¼ in. (31 cm.)
Plaster model executed in 1905, this bronze version cast at a later date in an edition of two.

Provenance

Mrs. Percival Farquhar (acquired from the artist)
Mrs. George Farquhar, New York
Curt Valentin Gallery, New York
Acquired from the above by Mr. and Mrs. Ralph F. Colin on Sept. 8, 1955

Literature

Cahiers d'Art, vol. 30, Paris, 1955 (plaster version illustrated, p. 165)
C. Zervos, Constantin Brancusi, Paris, 1957 (plaster version illustrated, p. 21)
I. Jianou, Brancusi, Paris, 1963, p. 90, no. 8 (another cast illustrated)
N. Sandulescu, Brancusi, Bucharest, 1965, pls. 1 and 2 (another cast illustrated)
M. Deac, Constantin Brancusi, Bucharest, 1966, p. 30 (another cast illustrated)
S. Geist, Brancusi: A Study of the Sculpture, New York, 1968, no. 20b (another cast illustrated)
B. Brezianu, Opera lui Constantin Brâncusi în România, Bucharest, 1974, no. 5 (another cast illustrated)
S. Geist, Brancusi, The Sculpture and Drawings, New York, 1975, p. 174, no. 26b (illustrated, p. 40)
R. Varia, Brancusi, New York, 1986, p. 106 (another cast illustrated)
F.T. Bach, Constantin Brancusi, Metamorphosen Plastischer Form, Cologne, 1987, p. 410 (another cast illustrated, p. 409)
P. Hulten, N. Dumitresco and A. Istrati, Brancusi, New York, 1987, pp. 66-276, no. 22b (another cast illustrated)

Exhibited

New York, M. Knoedler & Co., Inc., The Colin Collection, April-May, 1960, no. 119 (illustrated)
Philadelphia, Museum of Art, Constantin Brancusi, 1876-1957, A Retrospective Exhibition, Sept.-Nov., 1969, no. 30f (illustrated). The exhibition traveled to New York, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Nov., 1969-Feb., 1970 and Chicago, The Art Institute, March-April, 1970.
The Hague, Gemeentemuseum, Brancusi, Sept.-Nov., 1970, no. 2 (illustrated)

Lot Essay

Pride was done at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, thus some time after June 23, 1905. It is modeled in a conventional and modest style, the symmetrical face and neck enveloped by the irregular hair. Its very reserve seems to command attention, which it repays: the head is beautifully fashioned and firmly constructed; against its stability, we read the counterpoint of the hair, with its different joinery on the right and left sides.

Pride is the first bronze cast by the artist. It is also his first work with a symbolic title.

Why Pride, when the expression shows none, when it is if anything neutral? A photograph of Brancusi's studio shows an earlier state of Pride with a curious work placed before it - a small sculpture of a young woman averting her head from an unattractive man who attempts to kill her. The girl is the girl in Pride, the man resembled Brancusi - his hair, like the sculptor's, falls in a bang over his brow. In the title Pride Brancusi may be repaying the girl for a painful rebuff. (exh. cat., Brancusi, 1969, op. cit., p. 31)

The other bronze version is at the Muzeul de Arta in Cracovia and the whereabouts of the plaster are unknown.