The Brancusi Hall of the Romanian Modern Art Gallery of the National Museum of Art of Romania (MNAR) will be open to the public for 14 days, between 11 March, 10:45 and 25 March, 10:30.
"As of today, the Brancusi Hall of the Romanian Modern Art Gallery will be open to the public. In addition to Constantin Brancusi's early works, the Sketchbook and two bronze child heads from 1906 will be displayed for the first time for a short period. The Sketchbook will be open to different pages every week so that visitors can explore all the drawings and notes of Brancusi," the museum announced on Wednesday through a Facebook post.
Made up of 17 pages bound in a red cloth hardcover, the sketchbook represents the only substantial testimony preserved from Constantin Brancusi's learning years as a student at the Bucharest School of Fine Arts and represents a rare piece in the museum's collection.
The document features 89 sketches - two of them unfinished - and six pages include Brancusi's own handwritten notes. The sketchbook was left by Brancusi to choral composer Ion Croitoru, prior to his departure to Paris.
"Among the most significant drawings in the sketchbook are two red pencil self-portraits, f.55 (profile) and f.56 (front) - the first known self-portraits of Brancusi. In both of them the artist has a beard and wears a hat whose wide brim gives - deliberately in the frontal self-portrait - an aura similar to the saints depicted in icons. Self-irony and ambition are subtly intertwined in these explorations of his own psychology," the MNAR mentioned.
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The Romanian Modern Art Gallery tells the story of how Romanian art evolved from the 1850s until the 1970s.
The extensive monographic presentations of masters such as Theodor Aman, Nicolae Grigorescu, Ioan Andreescu illustrate the strong influence of French painting at a time when Romanian intellectuals were particularly interested in generating a national visual identity. Painters such as Stefan Luchian, Theodor Pallady, Gheorghe Petrascu, Nicolae Tonitza and Stefan Dimitrescu explore the vein of classical European modernism whereas artists like M.H. Maxy, Marcel Iancu and Victor Brauner make a strong case for the contribution of Romanian Avant-garde in shaping European avant-garde of the 1920s and '30s. Later generations of artists demonstrate a similarly broad opening toward the various trends and styles that dominate the European art scene for longer or shorter periods of time.
A consistent group of early works by Constantin Brancusi call for special attention, indicating the sculptor's strenuous attempts to move away from the academic tradition and follow a personal pathway. Echoes of his preoccupations can be easily discerned in the work of a limited number of contemporary followers such as female students Milita Petrascu and Irina Codreanu.
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