Constantin Brancusi
Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957), Romanian abstract sculptor. Born into a peasant family, he learnt the craft of woodcarving before beginning formal studies in sculpture. From 1904 he lived in Paris. His work be-came increasingly abstract and he simplified figures to basic egg shapes or cylinders, as in The Kiss (1910) and Torso of a Young Man (1917). In 1927 the US customs charged duty on his bronze Bird in Space, classing it as a piece of metal rather than as a work of art, but their decision was later overruled.
