Pound and Brâncuşi, 1913-1928

A Chronology

1913

February 17-March 15 – The Armory Show in New York. Brâncuşi participates with

plaster casts of five sculptures. His Mademoiselle Pogany and Duchamp's Nude

Descending a Staircase are the artworks most discussed in the press.

July – Allied Artists Exhibition in London. Brâncuşi contributes three pieces. He travels

to London and meets Gaudier-Brzeska. Gaudier publishes an article on this exhibition in

The Egoist. He doesn’t comment on the Brâncuşis however, since he had not yet seen

them at the time of writing the essay. Pound meets Gaudier.

1914

March 12-April 1st – Brâncuşi’s first personal exhibition at Stieglitz’ Gallery, “291.”

John Quinn acquires the Mademoiselle Pogany and the The Golden Bird, starting his

collection. Until his death in 1923, Quinn would acquire 33 sculptures and a drawing,

building up the most important Brâncuşi collection outside the sculptor’s studio, ever

owned by an individual or museum, then or in the future.

June – First issue of Blast appears in London. It contains Pound’s definition of

Vorticism as well as Gaudier Brzeska’s sculptural Manifesto, “Vortex” which Pound

would republish in his Memoir of Gaudier Brzeska and Guide to Kulchur.

July – Brâncuşi begins to take photographs of his own work.

1915

June 5 – Gaudier dies in a charge at Neuville St. Vaast in Belgium.

July – second issue of Blast with Gaudier’s second manifesto, “Vortex (Written from

the Trenches).”

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1916

Pound publishes his Memoir of Gaudier-Brzeska.

January 1 – Brâncuşi moves to a studio at Impasse Ronsin, 8.

October 23-November 11 – Brâncuşi’s second one-man exhibition at the Modern

Gallery (500 5th Avenue, New York). Walter and Louise Arensberg start buying his

work. They would build up the second largest collection of Brâncuşi’s works: 18

sculptures, 2 drawings, 8 photos.

1917

January 19 – Brâncuşi writes to Quinn directly for the first time. They take up a

correspondence which would last until Quinn’s death in 1923.

June, July, August – Pound’s Three Cantos are published in Poetry.

September 13 – in a letter to Margaret Anderson, the editor of The Little Review, Pound

comments – “Brancusi, sperm untempered with the faintest touch of intelligence.”

1918

November – Brâncuşi builds the first fully developed Endless Column, four modules in

wood.

1920

February – Scandal at the Salon des Indépendants because of Brâncuşi’s Princess X.

The sculpture was removed by the police allegedly because its indecency was likely to

provoke a riot. The sculptor was so shattered that he ceased exhibiting his work in Paris.

December – Pound and Dorothy move to their Paris flat at 70 bis rue Notre Dame des

Champs.

1921

January 13 – The New Age publishes Pound’s article “Axiomata,” which gives his

reasons for leaving London, chiefly “the mental constriction and the dangers of ‘belief’

as a paralysis of the mind.”

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 January-March – Pound visits Italy.

April – On his return, Pound brings over his belongings from London and makes his

own furniture (table and chairs) out of wood and cardboard.

March 24-April 18 – Brâncuşi participates in the exhibition called “Contemporary

French Art” at the Sculptors’ Gallery in New York. American collectors like Quinn,

Arensberg, and Davies lend their sculptures, 22 in all. The exhibition is a great success.

April 23 – Pound records in a letter to Scofield Thayer, editor of The Dial: “Met

Brancusi this a.m. for the first time. He is a fine object.”

May 21 – Pound writes to John Quinn: “I congratulate you on getting Brancusi’s bust.

From what I have seen I think he is by far the best sculptor here.”

June – Pound finishes his translation of Remy de Gourmont, which will be published in

August 1922 under the title The Natural Philosophy of Love.

June-July – Quinn is in Paris. He meets Brâncuşi for the first time and buys sculptures.

He also meets Pound and offers to lend him $200. Pound refuses for the moment, but

accepts, later in the year.

September – Brâncuşi number of The Little Review organized by Pound – The 24 plates

are Brâncuşi’s own photos of his work. Pound’s article is the first essay on the sculptor

written in English.

December – Boni and Liveright publish Pound’s Poems 1918-21, containing Cantos

nos. 4, 5, 6, and 7 with texts only slightly differing from the final versions.

1922

Pound meets Picasso, Hemingway, and William Bird.

January – T. S. Eliot gives Pound the manuscript of The Waste Land, which he corrects

until January 24.

January 22 – In his “Paris Letter,” published in The Dial, Pound comments on

sculpture and Brâncuşi.

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 February 2 – Joyce’s Ulysses gets published.

May 15 - Pound sees the Tempio Malatestiano for the first time.

June – Pound in Italy is working on the Malatesta Cantos.

– The Dial publishes Pound’s review of Ulysses.

July – Pound visits Brâncuşi.

August 9 – Brâncuşi pays a visit to Pound and discusses plans for a temple of love.

Under the fresh impression of the Tempio Malatestiano, the poet finds in Brâncuşi a

fellow traveller. The sculptor would come very close to fulfilling his dream when he is

invited by the Maharajah of Indoore to come to India and build a temple for his

deceased wife. Pound would dream of erecting a temple or a sanctuary to Aphrodite till

the end of his life.

October – Mussolini's March on Rome.

October-December – The Waste Land gets published in Eliot’s new magazine, The

Criterion, in October, in The Dial in November, and by Boni and Liveright in

December. In token of gratitude for his role as mediator in the publishing process, Eliot

gives Quinn the manuscript of The Waste Land as a gift. The poem is dedicated to

Pound as “il miglior fabbro.”

November – a photographic reproduction of Brâncuşi’s Golden Bird appears in The

Dial through Pound’s mediation. According to the editors, Pound had to beg and flatter

to get it.

end of 1922 – Pound and Dorothy leave for Italy and spend several months there.

1923

January – two Cantos (12 and 13) appear in the first issue of the transatlantic review

financed by Quinn and edited by Ford.

June – five ink drawings by Brâncuşi appear in the transatlantic review.

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1924

July 28 – John Quinn dies. For Brâncuşi this is a personal disaster; his hope that his

works might be kept together in a second exhibiting space analogous to his studio is thus

wasted. The Quinn collection (2500 items) is sold to various collectors and museums.

October – Pound and Dorothy go to Italy and finally settle there.

1925

January – William Bird prints A Draft of XVI Cantos at Three Mountains Press.

– Ernest Walsh publishes the first issue of the international quarterly of the

arts, This Quarter. It is dedicated to Pound and contains a self-portrait photo by

Brâncuşi, texts of his aphorisms, reproductions of 5 drawings and forty more

photographs of his sculptures. Pound had introduced Walsh to Brâncuşi three years

before.

1926

January 22-March 22 – Brâncuşi goes to New York for the first time to attend to

business related to three exhibitions. The first, in January, is dedicated to John Quinn

and aims at selling part of his collection; the second, the Exhibition of Trinational Art,

and the third, a personal exhibition, are both held at the Wildenstein Galleries in

February and March. The greatest part of the Brâncuşi collection owned by Quinn is

sold to Duchamp and Roché, who would bring it back to France and re-sell it to various

collectors. Brâncuşi visits Stieglitz and is photographed by him.

May – Brâncuşi installs an Endless Column in Edward Steichen’s garden at Voulangis.

The Column is made of a tree in that garden and is 30 feet tall.

June 29 – Brâncuşi attends the performance of Pound’s Le Testament de Villon at the

Salle Pleyel in Paris.

August 26 – an invoice addressed to Brâncuşi specifies the cost of 29 sculptures from

the Quinn collection, which were bought by Duchamp and Roché. The price ($8,500)

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 was less than half of what Quinn had paid for them. After the exhibitions in New York

(November - December, 1926) and Chicago (January 1927), Duchamp would bring the

Brâncuşi collection back to France.

October – Steichen comes to the United States, bringing along his Bird in Space. Since

the Bird is not just brought for the exhibition at the Brummer gallery but is also

Steichen’s property, the Customs Bureau demands 40% duty out of its declared price of

$600. Brâncuşi’s sculpture was considered by the authorities to be a piece of pipe, not a

work of art, since it did not bear any resemblance to a bird.

November 27-December 15 – The fifth personal Brâncuşi exhibition at the Brummer

gallery. Brâncuşi crosses the Atlantic a second time that year and takes the opportunity

to clean and repair the works he had sold to Quinn. He expresses a wish to erect an

Endless Column in Central Park.

December – Brâncuşi returns to Paris. His friends, Duchamp and Steichen file a protest

with the Bureau of Customs.

1927

January – Duchamp takes the exhibits from the Brummer Gallery and installs a

Brâncuşi show at the Arts Club in Chicago.

February – Appeal in the case of the Bird in Space overruled. The duty stands and is

extended to the sculptures sold at the Brummer Gallery. Duchamp has to return to

France. In this situation, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney offers to pay the legal fees of the

case and takes over.

October 21 – Trial Brâncuşi vs. the U.S. Steichen and Jacob Epstein testify in favor of

the sculptor.

October 26 – Pound involves himself, writing a letter at full blast to the Bureau of

Customs. To Brâncuşi he also sends a letter of encouragement on December 30.

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1928

Pound introduces Joyce to Brâncuşi, who would make an abstract portrait for Joyce's

book Tales Told of Shem and Shaun in the spring of the following year.

January 18 – Pound sends a letter to the Customs Bureau (the first page is preserved in

the Pound archive, Beinecke Library, Yale University) in which he refers to a precedent,

relevant to the Brâncuşi case: “So far as I can make out no reference was made to the

Department’s decision re/ the Nassak Diamond. /// Regardless of the brute stupidity of

the port authorities and general rural boneheadedness of some local lights and any

question of divergent taste in aesthetics, the legal and departmental precedent on

‘abstract art’ appears to me to be settled, quite clearly and sanely in the decision re/ the

diamond.”

August 6 – Pound writes another letter on Brâncuşi’s behalf to the Committee for

Patents at the House of Representatives (Pound archive, Beinecke Library, Yale).

November 26 – the case of the Bird in Space is decided in favor of Brâncuşi.

Sources:

Bach, Friedrich Teja, Margit Rowell, and Ann Temkin. Constantin Brancusi 1876-1957.

Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1995.

Carpenter, Humphrey. A Serious Character. New York: Dell, 1988.

Hulten, Pontus, Natalia Dumitrescu, and Alexandre Istrati. Brancusi. Stuttgart: Klett Cotta,

1986.

Lindberg Seyersted, Brita, ed. Pound/Ford. The Story of a Literary Friendship: The

Correspondence between Ezra Pound and Ford Maddox Ford and Their Writings about Each

Other. New York: New Directions, 1982.

Materer, Timothy. Vortex. Pound, Eliot, and Lewis. Ithaca: Cornell, 1979.

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Nadel, Ira, ed. Chronology. The Cambridge Companion to Ezra Pound. Cambridge

University Press, 1999, xvii-xxxi.

Rainey, Lawrence. Ezra Pound and the Monument of Culture: Text, History and the

Malatesta Cantos. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1991.

Scott, Th. L., ed. Pound/The Little Review. New York: New Directions, 1988.

Stock, Noel. The Life of Ezra Pound. New York: Pantheon, 1970.

Sutton, Walter, ed. Pound, Thayer, Watson, and the Dial: a Story in Letters. Gainesville:

University Press of Florida, 1994.

Wilhelm, J. J. Ezra Pound in London and Paris 1908-1925. University Park and London: The

Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990.

Zinnes, H., ed. Ezra Pound and the Visual Arts. New York: New Directions, 1980.