Ştefan Luchian – Master of Romanian Graphic Art

More than ninety pastels, watercolours and drawings made by Ştefan Luchian (1868-1916) throughout his career trace the artist’s journey from his brief submission to Modern Style influences to a fully-fledged, personal idiom based on the free use of colour. This chronological and technical survey of Luchian’s oeuvre highlights his contribution to the development of local graphic art at a time Romania discovered and defined its own modernity.
The selection ranges from the well-known Jugendstil-like cover of the Ileana magazine to many pastels and watercolours made as studies for some of his most popular works such as Safta the flower girl, Nicolae the lute player, or the Portrait of Mrs. Olivier. Landscapes from Brebu and the Ialomiţa plain and his ever popular flower still-lives (Carnations, Roses, Corn-flowers, Wild Flowers) reveal the force of his pastels, their painterly quality, vivid colour range and spontaineity.

Note the painter’s self-portraits: strong and expressive, they strike us through the intense gaze of an artist who never looked complacently in the mirror.
The exhibition marks the 150 anniversary of the artist’s birth.

Curator: Elena Olariu
National Museum of Art of Romania (admission via 2, Ştirbei-Vodă St.)
19 May to 23 September 2018
Visiting hours: Wednesday to Sunday, 10.00 – 18.00
Tickets: 10 lei
Free: Every first Wednesday of the month, Saturday 19 May, 18.00 – 24.00 (Museums Night)