Monumental art – Brancusi by Milița Petrașcu

A bust of Constantin Brâncuși, a larger version of the one made in the 1930s in Paris by Milița Petrașcu, his favorite pupil, is located in the park that bears the sculptor’s name, the former Dorobanți Park.

Milița Petrașcu (1892, Chisinau – 1976, Bucharest) studied sculpture in Moscow, perfected her skills in Munich under Vasili Kandinsky and Alexej von Jawlensky, and in Paris in the workshops of Henri Matisse, Antoine Bourdelle and Constantin Brâncuși (1919-1923, 1927), traveled to several countries to study, and studied literature and philosophy in St Petersburg.
She began working with Brâncuși after she attended the Salon of Independence in 1919.

Petrașcu created a bust of the master, and the version was placed in April 2001 on the site of the “Lupoaica/ Lupa Capitolina”. Today, the bust on a high plinth stands in the center of the small park, bearing the signs of time.

Milița Petrascu was a leading figure in the Romanian avant-garde movement, a master in the art of portraiture, considered the most gifted female sculptor of Romania in the 20th century. Among her works are the two mosaics on the sides of the parallelepiped “Fântâna Miorița”, realized by the architect Octav Doicescu, located near the Băneasa Railway Station in Bucharest, as well as the “Ecaterina Teodoroiu” monument in front of the Prefecture of Târgu Jiu and funerary monuments in the Bellu Cemetery.

Photo credit: curatorial