In 2026, marking 150 years since the birth of Constantin Brâncuși, a founding figure of modern sculpture, the Romanian Cultural Institute in London dedicates a special season of events to his life and work. The third event in the Brâncuși 150 series is organised in collaboration with Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery. It features a conversation exploring Brâncuși’s artistic identity as a photographer, with particular focus on the photographs of his own sculptures. The discussion will bring together two distinguished speakers with a deep interest in Brâncuși’s work: photographer and collector David Grob and art historian and researcher Jonathan Vernon. Together, they will reflect on the importance of photography within Brâncuși’s creative practice and on how the artist used the medium to shape the perception of his sculptural works.
This event takes place in conjunction with the presentation at Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery, London, of the first exhibition in the United Kingdom dedicated to Brâncuși’s photographs in more than two decades. It is also the artist’s first solo exhibition in London since the major retrospective held at Tate Modern in 2004. This conversation offers audiences a unique opportunity to gain deeper insight into a lesser-known yet significant aspect of Brâncuși’s artistic vision. Opened on13 January and running until the end ofMarch, the exhibition brings together three decades of the Romanian artist’s photographic activity, with the majority of the works being presented in London for the first time. Photography formed an essential part of Constantin Brâncuși’s artistic practice, serving both as a documentary tool for his sculptures and as an autonomous artistic medium in its own right. Some of Brâncuși’s sculptures are known today only through photographs, such as Woman Looking into a Mirror (1909–1914), which later evolved into the celebrated sculpture Princesse X (1915–1916), a controversial portrait of the psychoanalyst Marie Bonaparte.
Brâncuși began experimenting with photography soon after his arrival in Paris in 1904. Within the city’s avant-garde artistic circles, he developed friendships with several influential photographers, including Edward Steichen, Alfred Stieglitz and Man Ray. In1917, he met the collector John Quinn, who acquired many of Brâncuși’s sculptures based solely on photographs. This relationship proved decisive, transforming photography from a spontaneous activity into a systematic creative pursuit. Brâncuși allowed reproductions of his sculptures only through photographs taken by himself, believing that only these could convey the emotional relationship between the artist and his work.
The exhibition offers insight into the evolution of Brâncuși’s sculptural language, from early works such as Study for Laocoön, created during his studies in Bucharest, to the monumental sculptural ensemble at Târgu Jiu (1937–1938), which was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2024. Brâncuși’s photographs are not merely records of his sculptures; they are also a means through which the artist “sculpts with light”, capturing reflections and the subtle patina of surfaces. Through photography, he intensifies the visual impact of his sculptures. Man Ray famously described how one of Brâncuși’s “golden birds” was photographed so that the rays of sunlight created a radiant aura around it, giving the work an almost explosive presence.
The photographs invite viewers into the almost sacred atmosphere of Brâncuși’s studio in Impasse Ronsin, in the15th arrondissement of Paris, a space the artist described as “a living environment for his sculptures”. In this studio, Brâncuși continually rearranged his works into what he called “mobile groups”, exploring endless possibilities of arrangement and capturing these relationships through photography.
David Grob is a gallerist and collector. He founded Grob Gallery in 1981, specialising in 20th-century photography, paintings, sculptures and works on paper. He assembled the most comprehensive collection of Brancusi photographs (outside of the Centre Pompidou collection) in the last 50 years and is writing the catalogue raisonné of the artist's photographs.
Dr Jonathan Vernon is an art historian specialising in modernism, sculpture and philosophy. He is writing a book on Constantin Brâncuși’s work, and was awarded his PhD (Courtauld Institute of Art, 2019) for a thesis studying Brâncuși’s sculpture and its global reception.
