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| On learning that the sculptor Charles Despiau had captured her likeness in a bronze bust, Brancusi is said to have told Agnes Meyer, “[I will show you] what a portrait of you is really like.” In the resulting Agnes E. Meyer it is difficult to determine if just the sitter’s bust is represented, or if base and sculpture depict the whole figure. The work conveys the impression of a particular woman’s presence more than her face.
Agnes Meyer was a journalist and Chinese art scholar. She married Eugene Meyer, who became an owner of the Washington Post, and the two were among Brancusi’s earliest supporters and collectors. Brancusi’s sculpture of Mrs. Meyer eventually became part of their collection. It is exceptional in Brancusi’s oeuvre for its complete blackness. The color and material convey gravity, elegance and distance; perhaps for this reason, the artist subtitled the work “The Not Disdainful Queen.”
The installation at the Pulitzer allows two distinctive views. One is from the Main Gallery, where the sculpture can be perceived as a spectacular form in the distance, framed by a doorway. The other is within the Cube Gallery, where Agnes E. Meyer converses with Serra’s Pacific Judson Murphy (n. 19), highlighting the shiny and smooth surface of concentrated blackness.
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