Marcel Chirnoagă

Marcel Chirnoagă (August 17, 1930, Buşteni - April 23, 2008) was a renowned Romanian artist. He graduated in 1952 the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Bucharest, following simultaneously liberal arts studies. He was member of Artists Union of Romania since 1953.

Marcel Chirnoagă made, over his lifetime, more than 3,000 works, excelling in drawings, engravings, paintings and sculptures, while being the author of one of the most important works of the Romanian 20th century, the cycle of engravings "Revelation".

Images from here. Visit for more!

Oscar Han

Oscar Han (1891, Bucharest - 1976, Bucharest) was a Romanian sculptor and writer. A student of Dimitrie Paciurea at the Academy of Arts in Bucharest, he was a member of the Group of Four together with painters Nicolae Tonitza, Francisc Şirato and Ştefan Dimitrescu. His works were exhibited mainly in Bucharest, but also at Romanian art exhibitions and international exhibitions in other European cities, such as Venice, Anvers, Paris, the Hague, Amsterdam, Barcelona. He wrote a monograph on Paciurea and a large number of chronicles and articles (collected in 1970 in the volume Chisels and Brushes). In carving portraits of personalities, the sculptor was deeply concerned with revealing the physical and moral features of his characters. When realizing monumental works of art his main interest went at once to the gesture rhetoric and the volumes grandeur and to the demanding palpability of the modeled figures. He was Honored Master of Arts.

First Kiss

The Archer

Michael the Brave

Male nude

Male nude

Ion Irimescu

Ion Irimescu (February 27, 1903, Fălticeni – October 29, 2005, Fălticeni) was one of Romania's greatest sculptors and sketchers, often referred to as the "patriarch of Romanian art and sculpture".

His mother descended from an old French family with claims to aristocracy. As a child, while he was out at play, he found a grenade from World War I which exploded in his hand and nearly killed him. Though he was eventually healed, this accident nearly destroyed his dream to become a sculptor. From 1924 to 1928 he studied at the School of Fine Arts in Bucharest, under Dimitrie Paciurea and Oscar Han. In 1928 he made his debut at the Official Salon of Painting and Sculpture in Bucharest, becoming a regular participant there. In 1929 he received a scholarship to the Romanian School at Fontenay aux Roses in France and exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français in Paris; in the following year he studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière under Joseph Bernard. Until 1933 he participated at the Salon d'Automne and Salon du Printemps in Paris, receiving in 1932 the Honorary Mention of the Société des Artistes Français for his self-portrait.

Irimescu returned to Romania in 1933, and from 1937 he took part regularly at the exhibitions of Tinerimea Artistică (The Artistic Youth), a society founded in 1901 that included the most prominent Romanian artists; in 1938 he became an associate member of the society. Between 1940 and 1950 he was professor of sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Iaşi, and from 1950 he was a professor at the Ion Andreescu Institute of Fine and Decorative Art in Cluj-Napoca.

His 1956 participation to the Biannual Exhibition in Venice (with 15 works in the Romanian pavilion) was followed by another in 1961 to a contemporary sculpture exhibition at the Musée Rodin in Paris. In 1964 he was named professor of sculpture at the Nicolae Grigorescu Institute of Plastic Arts in Bucharest, where he was a close friend of painter Corneliu Baba. He eventually became the head of the sculpture department at the Institute.

Between 1978 and 1989 he was the president of the Romanian Union of Plastic Artists. He received the title of 'Doctor honoris causa' from the Universities of Iaşi and Cluj and was also named 'Master Emeritus of the People' (1964). His works have been exhibited around the world (Paris, Moscow, Belgrade, Budapest, Istanbul, Warsaw, Rome, Prague, Oslo, Tokyo, etc). Ion Irimescu was member of the Romanian Academy. In 2001 he was awarded the Prize of Excellence for Romanian Culture. In 2003, upon becoming a centenarian, he was distinguished with a remarkable celebration by the Romanian Academy and Romanian Ministry of Culture. General School No. 2 in his native city (where Mihail Sadoveanu had studied) was renamed in his honor. The Center for Study and Creation in Fălticeni also bears his name.

Irimescu became well known not only for his large- and small-scale portrait busts, but also for the neutral stance that he took as an 'official' artist during the years of communist domination. Although he was able to adapt to the forcefully imposed requirements of Socialist Realism, he responded to its abolition by a new creative phase, in which he developed a vegetal morphology inspired by his own calligraphic drawings and the malleability of ceramics. Although Irimescu produced many sculptures in stone, conceived for and erected in public spaces, he concentrated more on modeling and on small-scale sculptures.

In 1975 a museum was established in Fălticeni with a substantial donation from the artist. The museum building is a historic monument, dating from the middle of the 19th century and had various destinations until 1974, when it was given to the art museum. In 1974 the sculptor Ion Irimescu took the initiative to establish the museum, at first as a department of the Town Museum and made some donations. Later the value of the collection grew, currently being the richest author collection, and in 1991 a museum emerged. It comprises the most representative works by the sculptor Ion Irimescu: 313 sculptures and 1000 drawings: portraits, compositions, monument project carried out in the rondebosse or altorelief technique, in gypsum, wood, terracotta, marble, bronze works of graphics especially donated to the museum by the author. The museum also includes the artist's personal library (1500 volumes).

From Wikipedia.
Images from www.plural-magazine.com, www.falticeni.ro, ro.wikipedia.org.

Ion Jalea

Ion Jalea (May 19, 1887, Casimcea - November 7, 1983, Bucharest) was a renowned Romanian sculptor.

In 1908, after finishing the Arts and Craftsmanship School, he entered the Belles-Arts Academy in Bucharest, where he studied with Professors sculptors Franz Storck and Dimitrie Paciurea. For accomplishing his studies, he went to Paris, at the Julian Academy, to become Bourdelle's apprentice. He was Grand Prize winner at the Paris Exhibition in 1937 and at the Barcelona Exhibition, and recipient of National Prize for Sculpture (1941) and State Prize (1957). In 1957 he became People's Artist. He was member of the Romanian Academy. From 1956 to 1968 he was acting president of the Artists' Union, to become then Honorary President of the same Union.

Dragoş-Vodă and the Auroch

He worked monuments, statues, busts, reliefs and bas-reliefs. His vision sprang from an exaltation of form through observing reality - mainly the human face - and from an inclination to assimilate ancient mythology - induced fantastic morphologies. He created highly evoking statues of personalities (Spiru Haret and George Enescu in Bucharest), rulers' statues of a romantic look (Decebal at Deva; Mircea the Old at Tulcea); the Monument of Railways Heroes, co-worked with sculptor Cornel Medrea; the Emperor and Proletarian reliefs; the Union Obelisk reliefs at Focşani or allegorical representations (Hercules Fighting the Centaur in Herăstrău Park in Bucharest; Pegas, etc.).

Pegas

Jalea's sculptures, either evoking or romantic, are all ethically motivated: to glorify historical events or personalities, to emphasize moral conduct. He escaped simple illustration which subjects of this kind always invited. His monuments and reliefs obey the classical laws of moderation and harmony, of the proper measure of dynamical elements - gestures, upward and downward diagonals, to create a coherent and static work of art.

Archer resting

There is a fine touch over humans, horses (in equestrian statues), imaginary and mythological creatures. They seem to suffer slow vibrations and be light shed. Pictorial draping effects make the anatomical forms transparent. Archer resting, his most representative work, is the best expression of his talent: a perfect blend of real and allegorical strata, and a perfect knowledge of reconciliation of dynamical and statical strain.

From romania.ici.ro.

Idel Ianchelevici

Idel Ianchelevici (May 5, 1909, Leova — June 28, 1994, Maison-Laffitte) was a Romanian and Belgian sculptor and draughtsman.


Born to Jewish parents in Leova, Bessarabia, he left Romania for Belgium in 1928 to devote himself entirely to his passion for sculpture and drawing. After completing his military service back home, he returned to Liège and registered at the Académie des Beaux-Arts de la Ville, where he was awarded First Prize for statuary art in 1933.


La Cracheuse, 1943, Brussels
The same year, he married Elisabeth Frenay and moved to Brussels. He took part in the design of the Romanian pavilion for the Exposition Internationale Universelle in Brussels in 1935 and went on to hold a variety of exhibitions of his own in Brussels, Tel-Aviv, Paris, Amsterdam and several other cities.



Le plongeur, Liège
1945 was the watershed year: Ianchelevici obtained Belgian citizenship, and his famous statue L'Appel ("The Call") was officially unveiled in La Louvière. 10 years later, Ianchelevici was awarded a grant to work in the Belgian Congo, where he designed three statues intended to supplement the famous Stanley-monument in Léopoldville (now Kinshasa) and produced a number of outstanding drawings. He subsequently exhibited his work in countries throughout the world. In 1950, he settled in France, at Maison-Laffitte, where he remained until his death on at the age of 86. A cultural center in the town now bears his name.


Homme assis aux jambes croisées, pencil, 1945
The works of Ianchelevici literally step out of the medium. There is no void, no gap: the composition is entirely dictated by the mass and form of its volume (Paternel). From 1945 onwards, Ianchelevici began sculpting marble and stone - two notoriously difficult materials which require simplification of form. Limbs grew longer and more supple and the themes moved on, taking inspiration from the unformed, girlish figures of his young subjects. The artist's career underwent a major change at this point, as he embarked upon a ceaseless quest for simpler forms and more schematic faces (Eve, 1980). Alongside his sculpting, Ianchelevici never stopped drawing. His drawings are works of art in their own right, and not always sketches for his sculptures. In both disciplines, however, he draws on the same themes and strives for the same simplicity of form. (From Wikipedia. Visit also Le Musée Ianchelevici)