.
Like everything else I’ve ever done, there was a furious struggle to rise heavenward.
Brâncuși cited in: Finley Eversole, Art and Spiritual Transformation, 2009. p. 329
Born in Romania, 1876. Peasant family. Dirt poor. Walked, walked, from Romania to Paris in 1904. Over a thousand miles on foot because he couldn’t afford the train and he needed to get to where art was happening.
Sculptor. Started working for Rodin, the master, the legend. Quit after two months. Said “Nothing grows in the shadow of tall trees.” Had the balls to walk away from the biggest name in sculpture because he needed to find his own thing.
And he did.
Simplification. Pure form. Take away everything that doesn’t matter. Bird in Space, a bronze sculpture that’s just essence, just flight, just the idea of a bird without any of the literal bullshit. The U.S. Customs didn’t think it was art. Called it a manufactured object. Tried to charge him import duties. 1928, he sued. Won. Established that abstract art was actually art. Had to go to court to prove it.
The Kiss. Sleeping Muse. Endless Column. Each one stripped down to what’s essential. Influenced everyone who came after… minimalism, modernism, all of it traces back to this Romanian guy who walked to Paris.
Lived simply. Studio in Montparnasse. Made his own tools, his own furniture. Everything spare, everything intentional.
Left his entire studio to the French state. The whole thing, preserved exactly as he left it.
Buried here in 1957. The guy who walked a thousand miles to make art. Who quit working for the most famous sculptor in the world to become himself.
Nothing grows in the shadow of tall trees.
He knew that. Lived it.
Shot on infrared film in Cimetière du Montparnasse. Signed Limited Edition 17” x11” print of 10; stamped on verso. Professional black & white printing on Hahnemühle fibre-based Matt paper.