Romania 500 Lei banknote 1991
National Bank of Romania - Banca Națională a României
Observe: Portrait of Constantin Brâncuși.
Reverse: Constantin Brâncuși "Self-portrait in the studio c. 1934"
Romanian Lei banknotes
1991 "Constantin Brâncuși" Issue
500 Lei
1991-1994 Issue
200 Lei 500 Lei 1000 Lei 5000 Lei 10000 Lei
Constantin Brâncuși (February 19, 1876 – March 16, 1957) was a Romanian sculptor, painter and photographer who made his career in France. Considered a pioneer of modernism, one of the most influential sculptors of the 20th-century, Brâncuși is called the patriarch of modern sculpture. As a child he displayed an aptitude for carving wooden farm tools. Formal studies took him first to Bucharest, then to Munich, then to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1905 to 1907. His art emphasizes clean geometrical lines that balance forms inherent in his materials with the symbolic allusions of representational art. Brâncuși sought inspiration in non-European cultures as a source of primitive exoticism, as did Paul Gauguin, Pablo Picasso, André Derain and others. But other influences emerge from Romanian folk art traceable through Byzantine and Dionysian traditions.