Mlle Pogany
This is Version I of The Mlle. Pogany series. Brancusi met the Hungarian art student Margit Pogány in Paris in December 1910, and she became both his model and his lover before she left the city in January. Mlle. Pogany is the Brancusi's memory from his lover.
The Mlle. Pogany series occupied Brancusi for some twenty years. He carved the first version of this sculpture in marble from memory in 1912, and made casts in bronze and plaster from the original. Though several stylistic features of the 1912 version reappear in the two subsequent iterations, including the figure’s slender hands and exotically deep-set eyes, the portraits became increasingly abstract.
- Description
- This sculpture is a portrait of Margit Pogany, a Hungarian artist who sat for Brancusi several times in 1910 and 1911 while she was in Paris studying painting. Shortly after her return to Hungary, Brancusi carved a marble Mlle Pogany from memory, then made a plaster mold of the work, from which he cast four additional versions, including this one, in bronze. In representing its subject through highly stylized and simplified forms, the work was a significant departure from conventional portraiture. Large almond-shaped eyes overwhelm the oval face, and a black patina represents the hair that covers the top of the head and extends over the elaborate chignon at the nape of the neck. As with other motifs, this was a subject Brancusi would return to and rework in the years to come.
- Type
- Abstract Surrealist
- Subject
- Sculpture
- Creator
- Brancusi, Constantin
- Date Created
- 1913
- Extent
-
17 1/4 x 8 1/2 x 12 1/2" (43.8 x 21.5 x 31.7cm)
Other (bronze):
17 1/4 × 8 1/2 × 12 1/2" (43.8 × 21.6 × 31.8 cm)
Limestone base:
5 3/4 × 6 1/8 × 7 3/8"(14.6 × 15.6 × 18.7 cm)
Weight: 40 lb. (18.1 kg) - inches
- Rights
- © Succession Brancusi - All rights reserved (ARS) 2018
- Identifier
- Bio_Sculpt002_CB_MllePogany_01Front
- Source
- MoMA official website
- Item sets
- The Biomorphism
- Media
