Art Safari: Constantin Brâncuși’s The Kiss on display in downtown Bucharest

The famous sculpture The Kiss (1907) by Constantin Brâncusi (1876-1957) arrived in Bucharest for the first time in almost 50 years, being exhibited at the Art Safari Love Edition for ten days, until August 30. The masterpiece was previously included in a Bucharest exhibition in 1976.

The Kiss has an insured value of EUR 22 million and was transported from the Craiova Art Museum to Bucharest under maximum security conditions with a company specialized in fine art transport, escorted by the Romanian Gendarmerie. The masterpiece is guarded around the clock at the Art Safari event in downtown Bucharest.

"Brâncusi's The Kiss, the first of the famous cycle dedicated to love, finds its perfect place among the masterpieces at the National Portrait Gallery. We thank the Craiova Art Museum for its openness to lend us for ten days a masterpiece that completes the Love Stories exhibition. It is an important premiere for Art Safari, but also for the capital city," said Ioana Ciocan, CEO of Art Safari and Commissioner of Romania at the Venice Biennale.

The Kiss was made in 1907 and is the first sculpture in the much-loved series of Kisses, on which Brâncuși worked for 40 years. It is one of the artist's most famous masterpieces, along with The Sleeping Muse (1908), Prometheus (1911), Mademoiselle Pogany(1913), The Newborn (1915), Bird in Space (1919) and The Endless Column (1938).

The Kiss is considered the first modern sculpture of the 20th century. It has been exhibited in the great museums and art galleries of the world, including the Guggenheim Museum - New York, the Cartier Foundation - Paris, the Pompidou Center - Paris, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the BOZAR Arts Center in Brussels.

A version of The Kiss from 1910 serves as a tombstone in Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris, France, while another version can be seen at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

In Bucharest, the masterpiece is exhibited as part of the "Love Stories" show created in collaboration with the National Portrait Gallery, London, part of the Romanian art insertion dedicated to love. Art Safari also exhibits the love letters between Constantin Brâncuși and his muse Florence Meyer. On one of them, Brâncuși even drew a sketch of The Kiss