[Mademoiselle Pogany II]

Constantin Brancusi

1920–1921

Gelatin silver print

J. Paul Getty Museum

Constantin Brancusi's sculpture Mademoiselle Pogany II was modeled from memory after Marit Pogany, an aspiring Hungarian painter who sat for Brancusi in Paris in 1910 and 1911. Realized in highly polished bronze, in this photograph the sculpture assumes new forms and relationships to light and space through the sculptor/ photographer's incorporation of reflections from the room and the bright starbursts of artificial lighting. Under the arc that forms an abstracted eye, the legs of Brancusi's tripod appear like three parallel teardrops. Rather than simply documenting the sculpture, Brancusi used the medium of photography and its inh