French sculptor Constantin Brancusi's deceptively simple works, which aimed to reveal hidden truths about objects, animals and people, were integral to the development of Modern art. His ground-breaking originality, intense interest in non-Western art and innovative manipulation of materials distinguished him from his contemporaries. As a result, he was highly influential, particularly to movements such as Minimalism.

• Brancusi sought to create sculptures that presented the true essence of his subjects. While many refer to his work as abstract, he disagreed, saying they represented a fundamental, often concealed, reality.
• Magic, myths, folklore and exotic cultures fueled Brancusi's work. These traditional, old world inspirations formed a unique contrast to his sleek, modern creations.
• For Brancusi, the raw materials, primarily marble, stone, bronze, wood and metal, guided the specific forms he produced. He paid close attention to his medium, meticulously polishing pieces for days to achieve a gleam that suggested an infinite continuation into space.

The second of four children, Brancusi was born in the small farming village of Hobita, Romania in 1876. He had a difficult childhood, in part due to challenging relationships with his father, a property manager of a monastery, and the children from his previous marriage. After several attempts to leave home, Brancusi finally did so permanently in 1887 at 11 years old.

From 1889 to 1893, Brancusi lived in the Romanian city of Craiova, working as a waiter, cabinet-maker and fortune-teller, while attending the School of Arts and Crafts part-time. In 1894, he enrolled full-time at the school, where he excelled in woodworking and ultimately graduated with honors in 1898. Brancusi then studied modeling and life sculpture at Bucharest's National School of Fine Arts (1898-1902), winning awards in competitions for his work. He moved to Paris in 1904, and according to legend, traveled the entire way from Romania on foot. This tale, whether true or not, became part of the mythic air surrounding Brancusi, often seen as a peasant with an exotic originality.

From 1905 to 1907, Brancusi trained in sculpture and modeling at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, in the sculpture studio of Antonin Mercie. After meeting Auguste Rodin, Brancusi began working as an assistant in his studio in 1907, but left after only a month, later saying, "Nothing grows under the shadow of big trees." Yet, his month with Rodin was extremely important in shaping Brancusi's aesthetic. He took Rodin's work as a point of departure from which to create his own drastically different artistic direction, characterized by direct carving rather than working from a clay model as Rodin did.

After leaving Rodin's studio, Brancusi began establishing his own style, beginning with squared works such as The Kiss (1907-1908). Despite having the same name as one of Rodin's famous sculptures, Brancusi's work was its complete opposite in form, material and theme. Around 1909, Brancusi started creating smoother, more contoured sculptures using marble and bronze. He produced multiple, yet distinct versions of his works, such as The Kiss, Maiastra and Sleeping Muse, and by 1912, this career-long methodology of repetition was a consistent practice.

Brancusi's work made its American debut in 1913, when five of his sculptures appeared in the Armory Show. This landmark exhibition brought together new and avant-garde European and American art, much of which was highly controversial. Duchamp, whose work was also extremely challenging to critics, became an important friend, advocate and collector of Brancusi's sculptures. While many critics were puzzled by Brancusi's work, artists flocked to him, and many began collecting his work. Although Brancusi lived in Paris for most of his life, making only a few trips to New York, he acknowledged how crucial American collectors and critics were, saying, "Without the Americans, I could never have produced all that, nor even perhaps have existed."

Photographer Alfred Stieglitz gave Brancusi his first solo show at his Photo-Secession Gallery in New York in 1914. This successful exhibition also marked the first purchase by John Quinn, who became one of Brancusi's greatest patrons. That same year Brancusi began taking photographs. Many of his photos were of his own studio, recording the specific ways he organized the arrangement of his works, which was very important to him.

Brancusi's work continued to provoke. His Princess X caused a scandal at the 1920 Salon des Independants in Paris for its phallic form. Bird in Space became embroiled in a 1927-1928 legal battle over the definition of art. When customs officials refused to recognize Bird in Space as artwork, exempting it from customs duties, Edward Steichen, the owner, filed a lawsuit. The ruling in Brancusi's favor was a success for Abstract art in general. It was also in 1927 that Isamu Noguchi, perhaps his most famous student, served as Brancusi's studio assistant.

In the 1930s, Brancusi had discussions with the Maharajah of Indore about building a temple in India, but the public sculpture was never executed. In 1937-8, he created a monumental, three-part public art piece for Targu-Jiu, Romania to honor the Romanian soldiers who fought in World War I. Spread throughout a mile of the town, Table of Silence, Gate of the Kiss and Endless Column reflect sacred themes. However, Endless Column has been a site of dispute. In the 1950s, a Communist mayor attempted to dismantle it, citing it as corrupt, Western art. The sculpture remained standing, but was badly damaged, and eventually went through a lengthy and controversial conservation effort.

Brancusi received his first retrospective in 1955 at the Guggenheim. Throughout his life, he had carefully arranged and documented the placement of sculptures in his Paris studio. Just prior to his death in 1957, he left his studio to the city's Museum of Modern Art with the proviso that it would be preserved. It is currently reconstructed in a Renzo Piano-designed building outside the Pompidou Center.

With his distinctive sense of shape and space, Brancusi was a pioneering force in the field of Modernist sculpture, paving the way for many generations of artists. His sculptures placed the technique of direct carving, as well as the thematic use of non-Western sources, into the spotlight, while also challenging traditional definitions of art. Today, Brancusi's work can be found in numerous museum collections worldwide, repeatedly breaking records for the highest price paid for a sculpture at auction. Most recently, his Madame L.R. (Portrait de Mme L.R.) sold for $37.2 million at Christie's in February 2009.
Below are Constantin Brancusi's major influences, and the people and ideas that he influenced in turn.



Simplicity is not an end in art, but we usually arrive at simplicity as we approach the true sense of things.

They are imbeciles who call my work abstract; that which they call abstract is the most realistic, because what is real is not the exterior form but the idea, the essence of things.

Don't look for obscure formulas or mystery in my work. It is pure joy that I offer you. Look at my sculptures until you see them. Those closest to God have seen them.

What my work is aiming at is, above all, realism: I pursue the inner, hidden reality, the very essence of objects in their own intrinsic fundamental nature; this is my only deep preoccupation.

Matter must continue its natural life when modified by the hand of the sculptor.