Geta Brătescu

Geta Brătescu (b. 1926, Ploieşti) - is a visual artist from Romania, leading figure of contemporary arts. His work includes graphic art, drawing, collage, photography, video and book illustration.

Geta Brătescu studied at the Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest between 1945-1949, with George Călinescu and Tudor Vianu, and at the Institute of Arts "Nicolae Grigorescu" Bucharest between 1969-1971. She started art studies in 1945 at the Academy of Fine Arts under the guidance of master Camil Ressu, but she was forced to discontinue because of communist censorship.

Distinct presence in the Romanian contemporary art, complete artist who chooses as a means of expression such as traditional media and new, Geta Brătescu done graphics work, engraving, drawing and fabric collage, tapestry, object, action photography, video. She exposed his works in collective or personal exhibitions in famous art galleries around the world (in Bucharest, Rome, Hamburg, Vienna, Liverpool, Missouri, Lausanne, Belgrade, Sao Paolo, Fredrikstad, Dessau, Bonn, Ljubljana, Graz). Geta Brătescu received many national and international awards, and in 2008 she received the title of Doctor Honoris Causa of the National University of Arts in Bucharest, given for outstanding contribution to the development of contemporary Romanian art. Also, Geta Brătescu is artistic director of literature and art magazine "20/21 Century".

Geta Brătescu is caught in a contradictory move, developing artificiality and at the same time acknowledging its inevitability. Revealing for that are the objects with her face like a mask, increasing or decreasing the presence of artifice. High examples of his image features are combined with materials of everyday life, building composite objects that are assembled in collages often with humor, seeking the participation of the viewer. She goes from serious to humorous, off-hand the serious fantasy and whimsy, the conceptual rigor to the unstoppable inventiveness.

Geta Brătescu is regarded as one of the most remarkable personalities of Romanian post-war avantgarde art. With a background in literature and philosophy studies, pursued in parallel with those in art, Geta Brătescu’s artistic practice began in the heterogeneous and provocative intellectual environment of the 1940s and 1950s and has passed through the political upheaval of Socialism in Romania and its successive collapse at the end of the year 1989. The fact that the artist has experienced these social and cultural turns is an essential factor in understanding her recurrent appeal to particular forms of artistic expression.

Photos from Ivan Gallery