About This Artwork
Constantin Brâncusi
French, born Romania, 1876-1957
The First Step, c. 1912
Oil, over graphite on brown woodpulp board, prepared with shellac
606 x 289 mm
Signed recto, lower right: "Brancusi"; inscribed verso, top center, in graphite, underlined with blue crayon: "Brancusi / le premier pas"
Gift of Joseph Winterbotham, 1954.1353
Prints and Drawings
Not on Display
Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories
Exhibition History
Chicago, Arts Club, "Loan Exhibition of Modern Drawings and Sculpture Privately Owned by Chicagoans," January 3–17, 1930, cat. 32, as Baby.
Chicago, Arts Club, "Exhibition of the Joseph Winterbotham Collection," December 9–31, 1936, cat. 2, as Enfant.
Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, "The Heroic Years: Paris 1908–1914," October 21–December 8, 1965.
Paris, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, "Constantin Brancusi," April 14-August 21, 1995, pp. 128, 297, cat.124; traveled to Philadelphia Museum of Art, October 8–December 31, 1995.
Publication History
Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Chicago, 1961), p. 30, as Sketch of a Child, 1907–1909.
Ionel Jianou, Brancusi (New York, 1963), pp. 112, fig. 83 (ill.), as Sketch of a Child.
A. James Speyer and Courtney Graham Donnell, Twentieth Century European Paintings (Chicago, 1980), p. 33, cat. 1B7.
Ownership History
Joseph Winterbotham (1878-1954), Chicago, by 1936 [Chicago 1936]; given to the Art Institute, 1954.