Suffering

Modern Art

1907

Constantin Brancusi
Romanian, active France, 1876–1957

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Modern Art

Artist: Constantin Brancusi
Title: Suffering
Place: France (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1907
Medium: Bronze
Inscriptions: Signed: "C. Brancusi 1907"
Dimensions: 29.2 × 28.8 × 22.3 cm (11 1/2 × 11 3/8 × 8 3/4 in.)
Credit Line: Through prior purchase with funds provided by a Friend of the Art Institute of Chicago, Kate L. Brewster, Mr. and Mrs. Carter H. Harrison, Mr. and Mrs. Seymour Oppenheimer, and Joseph Winterbotham; Major Acquisitions Centennial Fund
Reference Number: 1985.542
Copyright: © 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

St. Louis, City Art Museum, Four Modern Sculptors: Brancusi, Calder, Lipchitz, Moore exh. cat. (St. Louis: City Art Museum, 1946), n.p., (ill.), as Boy.
Ritchie, Andrew, Sculpture of the Twentieth Century (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1952), p. 60 (ill.), as Boy, 1907.
Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Seventy-five Years of Sculpture exh. cat. (Houston Museum of Fine Arts, 1953), n.p., (cat. 11, ill.), as Boy, 1907.
Life Magazine (December, 1955), (ill.).
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Constantin Brancusi exh. cat. (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1956), n.p., as Bust of a Boy, 1907.
Lewis, David, Constantin Brancusi (New York: George Wittenborn Inc., 1957), p. 11, n.p. (fig. 4), as Bust of a Boy (La Supplice) [sic], 1907.
Jianou, Ionel, Brancusi (New York: Tudor Publishing Co., 1963), p. 90, as Pain (Head of a Child), 1906.
Spear, Athena T., “A Contribution to Brancusi Chronology,” Art Bulletin, 48, no. 1 (March 1966), pp. 45, 51 (cat. 15b), as Torment, 1906-07.
Spear, Athena T., “Letter to the Editor,” Art Bulletin, 48, nos. 3–4 (September–December 1966), p. 465, as Torment.
Geist, Sidney, Brancusi, A Study of the Sculpture (New York: Grossman Publishers, 1968), pp. 23, (ill., fig. 31), 215 (cat. 31a), as Torment II, 1907.
Geist, Sidney, Constantin Brancusi 1876–1957: A Retrospective Exhibition (New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1969), p. 37 (ill.), as Torment II, 1907.
Boime, Albert, “Brancusi in New York: Ab ovo ad infinitum,” The Burlington Magazine, 112, no. 806 (May 1970), p. 333 (ill., fig. 85), 335, as Torment II, 1907.
Museum of Art of the Socialist Republic of Romania, Constantin Brancusi 1876–1957 exh. cat. (Bucharest: Museum of Art of the Socialist Republic of Romania, 1970).
Gemeentemuseum, Constantin Brancusi 1876–1957 exh. cat. (The Hague: Gemeentemuseum, 1970), pp. 45 (cat. 6), 46, p. 76 (ill.), as Kwelling II, 1907.
Geist, Sidney, Brancusi: The Sculpture and Drawings (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1975), p. 43 (ill.), 174 (cat. 37a), 194, as Torment II, 1907.
Brezianu, Barbu, Brancusi in Romania (Bucharest: Editura Academiei, 1976), p. 94 (n. 1), Torment, 1907.
Geist, Sidney, Brancusi: A Study of the Sculpture (New York: Hacker Art Books, 1983), pp. 23, (ill., fig. 31), 215 (cat. 31a), 253 (cat. 37a), as Torment II, 1907.
Art Institute of Chicago, Mosaic (July/August 1986), p. 8 (ill.), as Torment II, 1907.
Hulten, Pontus, Natalia Dumitresco, and Alexandre Istrati, Brancusi (Paris: Flammarion, 1986), p. 278 (cat. 32b, ill.), as Le Supplice II, 1907.
Bach, Friedrich Teja, Constantin Brancusi: Metamorphosen Plastischer Form (Cologne: DuMont Buchverlag, 1987), pp. 417 (cat. 63a, ill.), 418, as Die Qual II (Le Supplice II), 1907.
Andreotti, Margherita, “Brancusi’s Golden Bird: A New Species of Modern Sculpture,” Museum Studies 19, 2 (1993), pp. 137, 198 (n. 1), Suffering/Torment II, 1907.
Rowell, Margit, and Ann Temkin, Constantin Brancusi exh. cat. (Paris: Musée National d’Art Moderne, 1995), pp. 86 (cat. 6), 87 (ill.), as Le Supplice [II}, 1907.
Tabart, Marielle, Brancusi: l’inventeur de la sculpture moderne (Paris: Gallimard/Centre Georges-Pompidou, 1995), p. 22 (ill.), as Le Supplice II, 1907.
Brezianu, Barbu, Brancusi in Romania (Bucharest: Editura ALL, 1999), p. 126 (n. 2), as Torment, 1907.
Tabart, Marielle, Le portrait? (Paris: Éditions du Centre Pompidou, 2002), p. 77, note for cat. 15, as Le Supplice II, c. 1907.

St. Louis, City Art Museum, Four Modern Sculptors: Brancusi, Calder, Lipchitz, Moore, March 20–May 1, 1946, n.p., (ill.), as Boy; traveled to Cincinnati Art Museum, October 1–November 15, 1946.
Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, Seventy-five Years of Sculpture, November 1953, n.p., (cat. 11, ill.), as Boy, 1907.
New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Constantin Brancusi, October 26, 1955–January 8, 1956, n.p., as Bust of a Boy, 1907; traveled to Philadelphia Museum of Art, January 27–February 26, 1956.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (organizer), Constantin Brancusi 1876–1957: A Retrospective Exhibition, p. 37 (ill.), as Torment II, 1907; traveled to Philadelphia Museum of Art, September 23–November 15, 1969; New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, November 21, 1969–February 15, 1970; Art Institute of Chicago, March 14–April 26, 1970.
Bucharest, Museum of Art of the Socialist Republic of Romania, Constantin Brancusi 1876–1957, June 1970, cat. 6 (ill.); traveled to The Hague, Gemeentemuseum, September 19–November 29, 1970, pp. 45 (cat. 6), 46, p. 76 (ill.), as Kwelling II, 1907.
Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou, Constantin Brancusi: 1876–1957, April 14–August 21, 1995, pp. 86 (cat. 6), 87 (ill.), as Le Supplice [II}, 1907; traveled to Philadelphia Museum of Art, October 8–December 31, 1995.
New Brunswick, Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Breaking the Mold: Sculpture in Paris from Daumier to Degas, October 23, 2005–March 12, 2006.
Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum, The Age of Picasso and Matisse: Modern Masters from the Art Institute of Chicago, Oct. 6, 2013–Feb. 16, 2014, no cat. no.
Tokyo, Artizon Museum, Constantin Brancusi, Mar. 30-July 7, 2024, no cat.

The artist, Paris. Cathya Popescu (the future Mrs. Percival Farquhar), Paris, probably acquired directly from the artist, by 1911 [Geist 1975]; given to her daughter-in-law, Lydia A. Farquhar (Mrs. George Farquhar), New York, 1946 [Paris 1995]. Possibly with Buchholz Gallery, New York, 1946 [St. Louis 1946]. Richard S. Davis (1917–1985), Wayzata, MN, by 1955 [New York 1955]; the estate of Richard S. Davis, 1985; sold through Merrill C. Rueppel (1925–2011), Needham, MA., to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1985.

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