Brâncuşi, Britain and the Idea of Modern Sculpture

Join us as we examine Constantin Brâncuşi’s reception in Britain, its wider resonance in modern and contemporary art and the impact it has made on changing definitions of modern sculpture in Britain.

Brâncuşi is one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century, hailed by Henry Moore for stripping back sculpture’s centuries-old overgrowth and restoring its shape consciousness. Brâncuşi’s artistic innovations drew the attention of an international network of Modernist peers throughout his career, including in Britain, where his work was first exhibited in 1913.

In more recent decades, historians have reckoned with the complexity of the artist’s work in new ways, teasing out its dynamics of difference and repetition, transience and permanence, abstraction and embodiment. This conference will invite participants to continue this dialogue, taking this plural view of Brâncuşi as a touchstone for questions about the relationship between British sculpture and the international avant-garde.

This conference marks the conclusion of the Henry Moore Foundation’s research season ‘Brâncuşi and Britain’, organised to coincide with the major exhibition of Brâncuşi’s work at Centre Pompidou, Paris in spring 2024. Alex Potts (University of Michigan) will deliver the keynote presentation.

The Brâncuşi and Britain Research Season has been kindly supported by the Romanian Cultural Institute.

Photo: Henry Moore meeting Brancusi with Frank McEwan, Herbert Read and Paul Eluard at the British Council Gallery at the Champs Elysees, Paris in 1945.