gelatin silver print, printed before 1934, 22 x 28 cm.

Provenance: A gift from Albert Skira to Aldo van Eyck, Zürich, 1945; Literature: Maurice Raynal, "Dieu-Table-Cuvette", in Minotaure, no. 3-4, December 1933, p. 42 (illustrated in b/w)

In an article published in 1982, Aldo van Eyck looked back on his formative years in Zürich during World War II, where he studied architecture at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (the ETH) and would meet his future wife, Dutch-born Hannie van Roojen. Aldo and Hannie shared a strong interest in contemporary art and started collecting as a young couple under the guidance of Carola Giedion-Welcker (known as C.W.). Towards the end of the war, Aldo travelled to Paris from Zürich as a "kind of envoy-carrier sent by C.W. and those around her". During this visit, he met Brancusi for the first time, an encounter which Aldo remembers as follows: "I had messages with me for Giacometti, Tzara, Léger, Braque, Pevsner, Vantongerloo, Nelly van Doesburg and for Brancusi, a weighty trunk full of roasted coffee beans, tobacco and Cognac. Having found Impasse Roncin and the door of his [Brancusi] rural atelier finally opened, the trunk lock burst open and all the luxuries avalanched onto the floor in front of the great fish! I visited Constantin Brancusi many times after that; with my wife, Felix Schwarz or alone. [...] For us, Brancusi was the summit of what art could mean, and I'll be damned if we weren't right!" (Aldo van Eyck, "Ex Turico Aliquid Novum", in Architese 5-81 (Holland 1950-80), 1981, p. 37). On a photograph from 1966 added to the online catalogue you can see Aldo van Eyck holding a bronze head by Brancusi which was included in the exhibition 'Sonsbeek '66' (La Muse endormie, 1910, collection Centre Pompidou/MNAM, Paris, inv.no. AM1374S). Aldo is seated in the temporary pavilion which he designed for Sonsbeek '66, the 5th sculpture exhibition in Park Sonsbeek, Arnhem, which took place from May 27th to September 25th, 1966.