Myriam Marbé

Myriam Marbé (April 9, 1931, Bucharest – December 25, 1997, Bucharest) was a Romanian composer and pianist, considered one of the most valuable international contemporary music composer.

She received her first piano lessons from her mother, Angela, who was a pianist. Between 1944-1954 she studied at the Bucharest Conservatory - piano with Florica Musicescu and Silvia Capăţână, and composition with Leon Klepper and Mihail Jora. From 1953 to 1965, she was a film director in Bucharest. She taught counterpoint and composition at the Bucharest Conservatory from 1954 to 1988, where her refusal to join the Romanian Communist Party prevented her from reaching the rank of Professor. After the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe, she was awarded a working grant from the German city of Mannheim for the year 1989-90.

Besides being a composer, Marbé worked as a journalist and musicologist. She coauthored a monograph on George Enescu and also wrote critical essays and analysis on musical style.

Monica Lovinescu

Monica Lovinescu (November 19, 1923, Bucharest – April 20, 2008, Paris) was a Romanian essayist, short story writer, literary critic, translator, and journalist, noted for her activities as an opponent of the Romanian Communist regime.


Daughter of literary figure Eugen Lovinescu, Monica was born in Bucharest. Having graduated from the University of Bucharest, she obtained in 1947 a scholarship from the French Government. Only a few months later, after Romania was declared a Popular Republic, Monica Lovinescu asked for political asylum and settled in Paris. A close friend of Ionesco, Cioran and Mircea Eliade who come alive in her memoirs published in Bucharest. Throughout her life Lovinescu was active as a journalist and broadcaster, waging an unequal war against the Communist oppression in Romania and elsewhere.

From 1951 to 1975, she is the Romanian correspondent of the French Overseas broadcasting in Romanian language on Literature and Music. From 1967 she presents at Radio Free Europe the cycle “Teze şi antiteze la Paris” and the “Actualitatea culturală românească”, which enjoy a huge audience in Romania. These attract the attention of Romania’s secret services as a result of which Monica Lovinescu becomes the target of the Securitate operatives in Paris, is roughed up on the doorstep of her flat and receives threats and hate calls. This leaves Monica Lovinescu shaken but even more determined in waging her crusade with the pen and the microphone against the indomitable Ceauşescu, for a long time the “darling of the West”.


She published several works under the pseudonyms Monique Saint-Come and Claude Pascal, and was married to the literary critic Virgil Ierunca. She published extensively on the subject of communism in her country, as well as works on Romanian literature. Her articles were frequently featured in prestigious magazines such as Kontinent, Les Cahiers de l'Est, and L'Alternative. She contributed the Romanian chapter of the collection of essays titled Histoire des spectacles (published by Éditions Gallimard). In recognition of her life-long contribution to the Romanian political and Cultural Life, Monica Lovinescu was honored by the Romanian Presidency with the Order of the Grand Cross of Romania.

Nicolae Tonitza

Nicolae Tonitza (April 13, 1886, Bârlad – February 27, 1940, Bucharest) was a Romanian painter, engraver, lithographer, journalist and art critic. Drawing inspiration from Post-impressionism and Expressionism, he had a major role in introducing modernist guidelines to local art.


In 1902 he joins the National School of Fine Arts in Iaşi. In 1908 he left for Munich, where he attended the Königliche Bayerische Akademie der Bildenden Kunste (Royal Academy of Fine Arts); he began publishing political cartoons in Furnica (The Ant), and contributing art criticism articles to Arta Română (Romanian Art). Tonitza spent the following three years in Paris, where he visited artists' studios, and studied famous paintings.


After his return, Tonitza finished his studies and received also a church painter diploma. He then painted the churches of Grozeşti, Scorţeni, Silişte, Poeni, Văleni in Moldavia and worked as an art teacher, and then, together with Cezar Petrescu, as editor of Iaşul newspaper. He married Ecaterina Climescu in 1913. In 1916, after Romania entered the WWI, Tonitza was drafted into the Army and fell prisoner to the Bulgarians during the Battle of Turtucaia. Interned, he became ill with malaria and rheumatism, which would plague him until his death. He was set free and returned in 1918. During the 1920s, he was a member of the Arta Română group (alongside Gheorghe Petraşcu and others).



His commitment to social commentary is best perceivable in his graphic work, malicious and sometimes dramatic — he sketched for many contemporary, usually political and leftist, magazines. In 1921, Tonitza expanded his range, painting prototypes for a ceramics factory, and organizing a ceramics exhibition; the same year, he moved to Vălenii de Munte, and decided to cease contributing to the press. It was at the time that he developed on his characteristic style and themes, both of which, Zambaccian contended, were determined by his experiences as a father. In 1926, Tonitza, Oscar Han, Francisc Şirato, and Ştefan Dimitrescu, organized themselves as Grupul celor patru ("The Group of Four"). He met success in 1925, after opening a large exhibit in Bucharest, while raising controversy (including criticism from Ressu) over his "poster-like" style.



He begins must to be more and more appreciated and to considered in the time as the most important painter of moment, also by exposing abroad (Amsterdam, Brussels, Barcelona). Despite his fame, he continued to live an impoverished and hectic existence, which probably contributed to the decline of his health. Upon Dimitrescu's death in 1933, Tonitza held his chair at the Fine Arts Academy in Iaşi. A participant in several national exhibitions and World Fairs, he painted his last works around Balchik. He fell severely ill in 1937, and died three years later.



His aesthetic options were built around the problems of Impressionism, the achievements of the Post-Impressionists, the decorative trends of Modern Style. His equilibrium, his hedonism, his tempered sensitiveness are turned into the brilliancy of light and color in the harmony between color and line. Beyond the everyday torments, his painting remained serene, expressing a classicist artistic ideal. Highly influential and admired, he inspired several generations of artists with his works, which were at the same time original, strong and vivid.