Hand of Mademoiselle Pogany | Harvard Art Museums

Gallery Text

This intimate sculpture is a later work in Brancusi’s continual study of Margit Pogany, a Hungarian painter who met and first posed for the artist in Paris in 1910. Hand demonstrates Brancusi’s increasingly reductive sculptural technique in his search to achieve representation through essential form. In this portrayal, the complex network of lines and curves that together compose a hand are distilled to the subtle contour of a single shape, carved in smooth, warm-hued marble. This sculpture has the potential to evoke both the seductive and the sinister; it is at once a fetish-like token and the uncanny relic of a dismembered body. Brancusi’s sculpture appealed to the surrealists because of what they saw as its allusions to the instinctual.

Identification and Creation

Object Number: 1964.110
People: Constantin Brancusi, Romanian (Hobita (Gorj), Romania 1876 - 1957 Paris, France)
Title: Hand of Mademoiselle Pogany
Classification: Sculpture
Work Type: sculpture
Date: 1920
Culture: Romanian
Persistent Link: https://hvrd.art/o/213775

Location

Location: Level 1, Room 1310, Modern and Contemporary Art, Surrealism

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Physical Descriptions

Medium: Yellow marble
Dimensions: 30.4 x 6.4 x 5.1 cm (11 15/16 x 2 1/2 x 2 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History: Constantin Brancusi, gift; to John Quinn, New York, New York, (1921-1924); toJohn Quinn Estate, (1924-1926). Meredith Hare, (1926-1932), by descent to David Hare. [Jane Wade Gallery, New York, New York], sold; to Fogg Art Museum, 1964.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line: Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Purchase through the generosity of Mr. and Mrs. Max Wasserman
Copyright: © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
Accession Year: 1964
Object Number: 1964.110
Division: Modern and Contemporary Art
Contact: am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu
Permissions: The Harvard Art Museums encourage the use of images found on this website for personal, noncommercial use, including educational and scholarly purposes. To request a higher resolution file of this image, please submit an online request.

Publication History

National Gallery Alexandros Soutzos Museum, Six Leading Sculptures and the Human Figure, page 290
Judith Zilczer, 'The Noble Buyer': John Quinn, Patron of the Avant-Garde, exh. cat., Smithsonian Institution Press (Washington, D.C, 1978), cat. no. 6, repr., p. 151
Clive Dilnot, "The Enigma of Things", Harvard University Art Museums Bulletin (Cambridge, MA, Winter 1993 - Winter 1994), vol. II, no. 2, repr. p. 57
Ivan Gaskell, "Writing (and) Art History: Against Writing", The Art Bulletin, College Art Association of America (September 1996), pp. 403-406 (repro. p. 405)
Carmen Giménez, ed., Constantin Brancusi: The Essence of Things, exh. cat., Tate Gallery Publishing Limited (London, UK, 2004), p. 55, Fig. 30 (repr. in color), p. 55-6 (text)
Jacquelynn Baas, Smile of the Buddha: Eastern Philosophy and Western Art from Monet to Today, University of California Press (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 2005), p 70

Exhibition History

"The Noble Buyer:" John Quinn, Patron of the Avant-Garde, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., 01/01/1978 - 12/31/1978
Six Leading Sculptors and the Human Figure. Rodin, Bourdelle, Maillol, Brancusi, National Gallery Alexandros Soutzos Museum, 116 01 Athens, 06/09/2004 - 09/30/2004
Ancient to Modern, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 01/31/2012 - 06/01/2013
Modern Art and Modernity, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 01/31/2013 - 06/01/2013
32Q: 1310 Surrealism, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 01/01/2050

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Modern and Contemporary Art at am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu

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1964.110: Hand of Mademoiselle Pogany