Untitled (Sleeping Muse)
Constantin Brâncuși
Romanian and French, born Romania. 1876–1957
c. 1910
A gelatin silver photograph of Constantin Brâncuși’s carved Sleeping Muse, presenting the artist’s effort to reduce a face to a serene, elemental oval.
Seen close and tilted on its side, the smooth, pale head appears to float against a dark field, its simplified eyelids and lips registering as a hushed, tactile presence between light and shadow.
An emblem of Brâncuși’s move toward radical simplification, this image helped make modern sculpture’s focus on essential form legible and widely influential by turning a tactile object into an intimate, reproducible icon.
Medium
Gelatin silver print
Dimensions
6 7/8 × 9 1/8" (17.4 × 23.1 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of Edward Steichen
Accession
152.1964
Palette
Exhibitions
