Polaire might have been the only girl that truly and openly had Constantin Brâncuși’s heart.
She was a beautiful Samoyed bitch, as white as his famous whitewashed studio in Montparnasse, Paris.
Polaire served as a guard, a living extension to Brâncuși’s artistic vision and most of all, as a loyal friend that accompanied him everywhere from cafés to movie theaters.
According to British Artist and historian John Golding (in “Vision of the Modern”,1994), Polaire “would accept food from no one but himself and menaced female visitors to the studio” he said that “She became, in her own way, a celebrated Parisian beauty and friends would ask after her in their letters”.
During her lifetime, Polaire was photographed by none other than Man Ray and captured in many a selfie by Brâncuși himself- always with her close to him and sometimes even placing her on a pedestal like one of his sculptures.
Sadly, Polaire passed away too soon, after tragically being hit by a car in 1925.
Golding writes that “Brancusi was desolated, although characteristically, he also remarked that her disappearance would enable him to concentrate harder on his sculpture.”
He buried her in a dog cemetery at Asnières-sur-Seine, just outside of Paris…and returned to his work.
Work in which, Golding notes, for the latter part of Brâncuși’s career, “depictions of animals far outnumber those of people.”
Brâncuși never replaced Polaire with another companion, whether dog or human and became increasingly reclusive.
You were a good dog, Polaire.
xez