The National Art Museum (Part 2)

Established in 1948, the Cabinet of Drawings and Prints took over and integrated works from public and private art collections in Bucharest (the most valuable came from the Toma Stelian Museum), and from the royal collection as well. It currently holds over 17,000 drawings and 40,000 prints by both Romanian and foreign artists. The collection had been steadily enlarged through acquisitions, with a special emphasis on Romanian contemporary art, including caricatures and poster designs. A significant group of Japanese prints from the collection of Gheorghe Băgulescu complements the holdings of the department.


Iosif Iser - Tatar Woman
Among the highlights of the Romanian collection are notable drawings, watercolours and prints by nineteenth-century masters such as Theodor Aman, Carol Popp de Szathmari and Nicolae Grigorescu. The latter’s sketchbooks provide a more intimate insight into the work of the great Romanian artist. The department also has the most important and consistent public collection of pastels and watercolours by Ştefan Luchian. Outstanding works by major painters-draughtsmen of the interwar period, such as Theodor Pallady and Jean Al. Steriadi, and drawings by the sculptor Dimitrie Paciurea, especially his sketchbooks, are noteworthy examples of the Romanian art collection.


Theodor Pallady - Street in Toledo
The European holdings include alongside French works, which account for the larger part of the foreign art collection, drawings and prints by well-known Italian, Dutch and Flemish masters. Educated mostly in France, Romanian artists and collectors developed a particular taste for French art, which explains the comparatively wide circulation of French works in local private and public collections. Drawings by Delacroix, Bourdelle, Matisse, as well as a large group of French engravings from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are among the strengths of the department.


Henri Matisse - Romanian Blouse
During the events in December 1989 one of the storage rooms burned down, and four hundred documentary drawings were destroyed in the fire. Over the years, generous gifts from collectors Ligia and Pompiliu Macovei, Dr. Aurel Olaru and graphic artist Vasile Kazar have compensated for this dramatic loss. Ever since December 2000, when the Museum was reopened to the public, the department has regularly shown its collection in rotating exhibitions mounted in specially designated rooms within the European Art Gallery and the Romanian Modern Art Gallery.

(From MNAR)