Constantin Brancusi created many beautiful pieces in his life. Many years ago at the MoMA in Manhattan I met one of them: Mademoiselle Pogany (1913) Bronze with black patina.

It sits like an object of desire and radiates like – what the heck was in that briefcase from Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction?

I was knocked to my knees. It was beyond anything I had ever seen. So modern, saying so much while being so beautiful and tough all at once.

Working primarily in stone and wood, his work suggests something primal and pure. He expressed his life’s work through these earthly materials.

It seems fitting to add this note from author David Lewis’s book, “Constantin Brancusi”:

Before his death, Brancusi had requested to be buried naked so nothing would be between him and the earth. But the authorities found this to be in bad taste.

Mademoiselle Pogany - Constantin Brancusi

About Constantin Brancusi: (Source: Oxford University Press) Constantin Brancusi was a french sculptor, draughtsman, painter and photographer of Romanian birth. He was one of the most influential 20th-century sculptors, but he left a relatively small body of work centered on 215 sculptures, of which about 50 are thought to have been lost or destroyed.

The bust in this article depicts Mademoiselle Margit Pogany, a young Hungarian woman who met Brancusi while she was studying painting in Paris.

Editor’s Note: Guest Author Ken Marshall is an artist from Southern California. For the last ten years he has been working mostly with sheet metal and aluminum – appreciating the brutality that metal can display. Ken’s work is very striking and the influence of Brancusi in some of his pieces is palpable. View a selection of current work on his website at gallery13artwork.com.