Brancusi was the son of a peasant from a mountainous province of Romania, yet he became an internationally famous artist and is now seen as one of, if not the, most important sculptors of the 20th century. How did this happen and what is so special about his work? Brancusi combined the Romanian wood working tradition with a Belles Arts fine art training. He also had an intuitive an understanding of the significance of engineered products. A great friend of the inventor of Conceptual art Marcel Duchamp, Brancusi is an enigmatic contradiction, and this will be explored in this lecture, along with his relevance to 20th century sculpture.

Image Constantin Brâncusi by Edward Steichen 1921 PD