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Tearful Romania hosts prodigal artist Brancusi's 'homecoming' exhibition

Major exhibition of sculptor Constantin Brancusi's work in his native Romania has been a huge success, drawing record crowds and emotional responses from visitors.

AFP

A photo taken on January 18, 2024 shows the bronze sculpture with the title 'Mademoiselle Pogany' during the exhibition 'Brancusi - Romanian sources and universal perspectives' on Romanian artist Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957) at the National Art Museum in Timisoara, western Romania. The largest exhibition in more than half a century of the late Romanian-born sculptor -- who spent much of his life in Paris -- features about 100 works, some of which have never been on display in his native land. / Photo: AFP

A Brancusi show billed as the "symbolic homecoming" of the sculptor to his native Romania has been a huge hit, leaving some visitors in tears.

The biggest exhibition dedicated to the modernist giant there in half a century features 100 works, some of which have never before been seen in Romania.

Constantin Brancusi was born a poor peasant in the Carpathian mountains in 1876, moving to Paris in 1904 where he helped revolutionise art.

But to the chagrin of his compatriots, he left most of his works to the French state when he died in 1957.

The blockbuster show in the western city of Timisoara has "healed a little of that pain", curator Doina Lemny told AFP.

Organisers had hoped to draw up to 70,000 people to the Timisoara National Museum of Art. But more than 100,000 have so far flocked to the show, which closes Sunday.

A wooden version of the Endless Column, 1914-16, of Constantin Brancusi, at the exhibition at the Art Museum in Timisoara, the largest Brancusi exhibition in Romania in the last 50 years. The Endless Column is one of the few of Brancusi’s creations, which can be clearly 1/3 pic.twitter.com/y9BTQCPU2r
— Valentin Mandache (@casedeepoca) January 22, 2024

Loyal to his country

Brancusi's "Maiastra" bronze, inspired by a local legend about a gold-feathered bird, and "The Boundary Stone" limestone column have particularly been drawing the crowds."

Brancusi never disowned his country. He kept his Romanian citizenship after becoming a French citizen," said Lemny, who said many visitors had tears in their eyes.

The great artist had a rocky relationship with Romania's postwar communist regime who eventually accorded him two large retrospectives, the last in 1970.

The Timisoara show, part of the city's European Capital of Culture celebrations, includes works loaned from the Pompidou Centre in Paris, London's Tate Modern and the Guggenheim in Venice.

The museum had to undergo major renovations in order to be able to host some of Brancusi's most famous and "very fragile" works.

Besides sculptures, the show also features photos and films made by Brancusi himself.

Museographer Andreea Foanene said the master's return has awed many visitors.

"It was very nice that most were whispering, like in a temple," she said.

"An artist like Brancusi is born only once every few hundreds or thousands of years -- he changed the course of art history".