White Negress II

1928

Constantin Brancusi
French, born Romania, 1876–1957

Among sculptors of his generation in Europe, Constantin Brancusi was arguably the most influenced by African art in his choices of materials and forms, but it was not until the middle of his career, in the 1920s and 1930s, that he chose to represent his impression of an African subject in two related series: White Negress and Blond Negress. According to the artist, the impetus for these works was a visit to the 1922 Colonial Exposition—an expansive exhibition demonstrating France’s dominance as a colonial power held in Marseille—where he observed a woman he understood to be of African descent. The anonymous subject, rendered as an elongated volume with just two features, lips and hair, reflected European stereotypes about African physiognomy, and presented the paradox of seeing a black body represented in light-colored materials. White in the title refers to the color of the marble, which at once relates to the tradition of marble statuary but also to an ongoing 20th-century fetishism of black bodies. In the blond versions, this same form appears in highly polished, mirror-like bronze.

Status: On View, Gallery 395
Department: Modern Art

Artist: Constantin Brancusi
Title: White Negress II
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.: 1928
Medium: White marble, black marble, stone, and wood
Inscriptions: Signed: "C. Brancusi 1928"
Dimensions: Sculpture: 49.5 × 14.5 × 19 cm (19 1/2 × 5 3/4 × 7 1/2 in.); Black marble base: 36.9 × 36.9 × 25.4 cm (14 1/2 × 14 1/2 × 10 in.); Stone base: 53.3 × 50.8 × 42 cm (21 × 20 × 16 1/2 in.); Wood base: 45.1 × 43.2 × 35 cm (17 3/4 × 17 × 13 3/4 in.)
Credit Line: Grant J. Pick Collection
Reference Number: 1966.4
Copyright: © 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

Parke-Bernet Galleries, Modern Paintings and Sculpture, Part One: The Collection of Helena Rubinstein (New York: Parke-Bernet Galleries, 1966), pp. 22 (ill.), 23 (lot 14, ill.), as La Negresse blanche, c. 1930.
Art Institute of Chicago, “Acquisitions, July 1, 1965–June 30, 1966,” The Art Institute of Chicago Annual Report 1965–1966 (Chicago: Art Institute, 1966), pp. 26 (ill.), 27, as La Negresse Blanche.
Spear, Athena Tacha, “A Contribution to Brancusi Chronology,” The Art Bulletin, 48, no. 1 (March 1966), n.p., (ill., fig. 9), as White Negress, c. 1930.
“A Brancusi for Chicago,” Burlington Magazine 109. no. 766 (January 1967), pp. 36, 37 (ill., fig. 69), as La Négresse Blanche, 1928.
Geist, Sidney, Brancusi: A Study of the Sculpture (New York: Grossman Publishers, 1968), pp. 102 (ill., fig. 173), 228 (cat. 173), as White Negress II, 1928.
Geist, Sidney, Constantin Brancusi 1876–1957: A Retrospective Exhibition exh. cat. (New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1969), p. 123 (ill.), as White Negress II, 1928.
“The Grant J. Pick Collection,” Revue des Beaux Arts (December 1970–January 1971), p. 7, as La Negresse Blanche.
Geist, Sidney, Brancusi: The Sculpture and Drawings (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1975), pp. 135 (ill.), 189 (cat. 189), as White Negress II, 1928.
Tabart, Marielle, and Isabelle Monod Fontaine, Brancusi photographe (Paris: Musée national d’art moderne, 1977), pp. 63 (ill., fig. 47), p. 120 (cat. 47).
Tabart, Marielle, and Isabelle Monod-Fontaine, Brancusi photographe (Paris: Musée National d’Art Moderne, 1979), pp. 63 (ill., fig. 47), p. 120 (cat. 47).
Geist, Sidney, Brancusi: A Study of the Sculpture (New York: Hacker Art Books, 1983), pp. 102 (ill., fig. 173), 228 (cat. 173), 273 (cat. 189), as White Negress II, 1928.
Varia, Radu, Brancusi (New York: Rizzoli, 1986), pp. 166 (ill.), 167 (ill.), as White Negress, 1928.
Bach, Friedrich Teja, Constantin Brancusi: Metamorphosen Plastischer Form (Cologne: DuMont Buchverlag, 1987), pp. 122, 130 (ill., fig. 188), 488 (ill., cat. 235), as Die weiße Negerin II (La Négresse blanche II), 1928.
Hulten, Pontus, Natalia Dumitrescu, and Alexandre Istrati, Brancusi (Paris: Flammarion, 1986), p. 306 (cat. 167, ill.), , as La Négresse blanche II, 1928.
Andreotti, Margherita, “Brancusi’s Golden Bird: A New Species of Modern Sculpture,” Museum Studies v. 19, no. 2 (1993), p. 198, n. 1, as The White Negress, 1928.
Klein, Ina, Constantin Brancusi: Natur, Struktur, Skulptur, Architektur Band I Text (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 1994).
Klein, Ina, Constantin Brancusi: Natur, Struktur, Skulptur, Architektur Band II Dokumente (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 1994).
Miller, Sanda, Constantin Brancusi: A Survey of His Work (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), pp.
xviii, n.p. (ill., fig. 110), as The White Negress II, 1928.
Rowell, Margit, Friedrich Teja Bach, and Ann Temkin, Constantin Brancusi: 1876–1957 exh. cat. (Paris: Gallimard/Centre Georges Pompidou, 1995), p. 262 (ill., fig. 1), as La Négresse blanche, 1928.
Giedion-Welcker, Carola, Brancusi als Fotograf: Ein Bildhauer fotografiert sein Werk exh. cat. (Bern: Benteli Verlag, 1997), pp. 123 (ill., Abb. 3), 124, 125, as La Négresse blanche II/Die weisse Negerin II, 1928.
Tabart, Marielle, L’Oiseau dans l’espace (Paris: Éditions du Centre Pompidou, 2001), p. 87 (ill., fig. 53), as La Négresse blanche II, 1928.
Tabart, Marielle, Le portrait? (Paris: Éditions du Centre Pompidou, 2002), pp. 101, 103 (ill., fig. 138), as La Négresse blanche II, 1928.
Varia, Radu, C. Brancusi photographe exh. cat. (Paris: Galerie Hopkins Custot, 2003), pp. 52 (ill., top left), 54 (cat. 23), 55 (ill.), as La Négresse blanche II, 1928.

New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Constantin Brancusi, October 26, 1955–January 8, 1956; traveled to Philadelphia Museum of Art, January 27–February 26, 1956.
New York, Parke-Bernet Galleries, Modern Paintings and Sculpture, Part One: The Collection of Helena Rubinstein, April 13–20, 1966, pp. 22 (ill.), 23 (ill.), lot 14, as La Negresse blanche, c. 1930.
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Constantin Brancusi 1876–1957: A Retrospective Exhibition, September 23–October 30, 1969, pp. 123 (ill.), as White Negress II; traveled to New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, November 25, 1969–February 15, 1970; Art Institute of Chicago, March 11–April 26, 1970.

The artist, until at least 1929; Helena Rubinstein (died 1965), New York and Paris, by 1933 [memo, July 28, 1966, in curatorial object file; Geist 1983]; by descent to the Estate of Helena Rubinstein, 1965; sold Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York sale, April 20, 1966, lot 14, to Allan Frumkin Gallery, Chicago, Apr. 22, 1966 [memo, April 22, 1966, in curatorial file]; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1966.

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