Golden Bird

Constantin Brancusi

ca. 1920 · Gelatin silver print · Photographs

Having found the photographs others made of his work uninspired, Brancusi took up the camera to reinterpret and present his sculptures as he alone saw them. His technique was not professional, but his photographs are highly imaginative and are now being recognized as characteristic works of his genius. The burst of light in the breast of the Golden Bird gives it an aura of primitive magic that seems to radiate from it, and the picture's organization is as magisterial and as seemingly simple as the authoritative minimalism of the sculpture.

Artist

Constantin Brancusi

Date

ca. 1920

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987