'Brancusi and His Muses', the largest exhibition dedicated to the great sculptor to be held in Romania during Brancusi Year, opened on Thursday evening at the Art Safari New Museum. Curator Doina Lemny said she wanted the initiative to be different, allowing the public to enter the artist's studio atmosphere.

'It is true that Brancusi's works are now very difficult to borrow. There are Brancusi exhibitions everywhere. But I wanted to recreate the atmosphere of his studio and evoke Brancusi's relationship with women. A beautiful relationship, based on respect, gentleness and discretion,' Lemny told AGERPRES on Thursday evening.

She said she had drawn inspiration from her own book, published in 2023 and dedicated to Brancusi's muses, which was translated this year by Silvia Colfescu and published by Vremea Publishing House.

'A book that I had been thinking about for many, many years. And at a certain point, I brought it together and published it because the public needs to know that Brancusi also had an intimate life. I did not delve into all the secrets of his soul, because we all need privacy. But the fact that he left this correspondence shows that he wanted people to know about what he experienced alongside these women and these men, because there were both men and women. Of course, women adored him. But why did they adore him? Because he welcomed them so warmly. And unlike Rodin and other sculptors, Brancusi was very welcoming, tender and respectful,' the curator said.

The women in the artist's life are presented in the exhibition at the Art Safari New Museum not only through the master's sculptures, but also through their lives, their correspondence with Brancusi, the passions that took them to different parts of the world, and objects that belonged to them.

Doina Lemny explained that this was because 'not all of them were translated into stone'.

'Not all the muses became busts or something else. They simply formed the environment from which Brancusi drew inspiration. For example, his greatest love, the Swiss dancer Marthe Lebherz - Brancusi did not make a sculpture called Marthe. He did not sculpt her or photograph her. He did not make a sculpture of Vera Moore either, although he had a son with her. I did not pursue this aspect, because it is not what matters most. What matters is what Brancusi was looking for, why, and what he took from these women. He took a certain pose, a certain experience, a certain feeling, a certain remark, and transcribed them all, bringing them together in a single portrait,' Lemny said.

According to Petru Lucaci, president of the Union of Visual Artists of Romania, the exhibition 'Brancusi and His Muses' completes the picture of the artist through an 'impeccable visual discourse'.

'I was surprised by the collection of photographs from Cluj, from the University of Art and Design, for example, which is essentially a donation from a private collection and ultimately brings new elements and new information about Brancusi and his work into the discussion. I saw some of the images. The photographs are by Brancusi. Among the photographs there are also several works that have disappeared. I did not know about them. We know them from photographs. This is information that is certainly useful for a complete biography, but we also discover this emotional dimension and his relationship with his muses. It is surprising and, so to speak, a complete visual discourse,' Professor Petru Lucaci told AGERPRES.

The exhibition brings together more than 200 works, 100 of them by Brâncusi - films, photographs, letters and drawings never before exhibited in Romania - as well as three exceptional sculptures that tell the story of the relationship between the artist and the women who marked one of the most fertile periods of his creative life.

Among the muses featured are Baroness Renee Irana Frachon (the model for 'Sleeping Muse'), Margit Pogany (the model for 'Mlle Pogany'), Lizica and Irina Codreanu, artist and writer Nancy Cunard, poet Mina Loy, dancers Marthe Lebherz, Florence Meyer and Marina Saliapin, as well as the artist's last partner, British pianist Vera Moore.

The ensemble is complemented by correspondence, posters, personal documents and objects belonging to these women, including dresses and jewellery, some of them from major collections such as the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Nouveau Musee National de Monaco.

For the first time in the world, a previously unseen collection of 40 photographs by Brancusi, held by the University of Art in Cluj, is being presented. The university is celebrating the 100th anniversary of its foundation. It is the most valuable collection after the one held by the Centre Pompidou in Paris. AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Daniel Popescu; EN - writing by: Cristina Zaharia)