15 November 2025 – 15 March 2026

Opening: Friday, 14 November, 18:00

Museum of Art Collections, 111 Calea Victoriei

Accompanied by the launch of the bilingual volume: C. Baba. The Collection Repertoire

The exhibition presents a selection from the work of Romanian painter Corneliu Baba (1906–1997), built around one of the major themes of universal art and, at the same time, a constant in the artist’s creative explorations: the female portrait. The exhibition is curated by Liliana Chiriac and Maria Muscalu Albani.

The artist’s Journals and Studio Notebooks hold testimonies of his inner struggles in the creative process – the identification of an exemplary female face, in which the particularities of facial features can express thoughts and feelings and, along with the gesture of the hands, suggest a nonverbal form of communication. These confessions reveal the artist’s interest in portraiture as a genre and his explorations of real or fictional physiognomies, demonstrating imagination and pictorial virtuosity. There is no period in the chronology of the artist’s work in which the theme of the human figure was not addressed, Baba being considered by art critics a “painter of the human being”.

Portraits of real or imaginary models are found in all periods of his creation and raise specific pictorial problems, establishing various connections between viewer and creator, as the artist himself reveals: “The portrait must shock not through resemblance, but through presence, a presence achieved pictorially and charged with dramatic force”.

Among the female portraits, the following types can be identified: the family portrait, the portraits of children, the anonymous portrait, the portrait with identity, the theme portrait, the imaginary portrait – inspired by the great masters. Some portraits reflect deeply personal themes, ranging from portraits of peasants to compositions such as Genre Scene, Pietà, Fear (themes of profound philosophical character).

The exhibition route includes more than eighty paintings and works of graphic art as well as personal objects or documents: sketchbooks, mirrors, family photographs, art albums, etc., displayed chronologically and thematically, accompanied by selected texts from the artist’s Journals and information about the depicted figures, supplemented by the curators.

The artworks and objects belong to the collections of the National Museum of Art of Romania and the Museum of Art Collections (C. Baba and I. Pas collections), as well as to three other museums in Bucarest (the National Museum of Contemporary Art, the Bucharest Municipality Museum, the Stamps Room – Library of the Romanian Academy), and from across Romania: Craiova Art Museum, “Vasile Pârvan” Museum in Bârlad, Gorj County Museum – “Alexandru Ștefulescu”, “Ion Ionescu-Quintus” Prahova County Art Museum, National Museum of Art Timișoara, alongside works from the artist’s collection and other private collections.

The second part of the event is the launch of the bilingual volume C. Baba. The Collection Repertoire. The volume is dedicated to the renowned “painter of the human being”, Corneliu Baba, was developed over two years, aiming to highlight unpublished information and provide clear data about the artist’s work, necessary for thematic identification and historical contextualizing of his creations, as well as illustrations of works/pieces from the artist’s collection at the MCA and from the collections of the Modern Romanian Art Section of NMAR.

Catalogue author: Liliana Chiriac

Exhibition conservator: Ilinca Damian

“Corneliu Baba. The Female Face – A Close Look” includes an educational program for children and teenagers entitled “Who is she?”, in collaboration with the ArtelierD Association, in the form of weekend workshops (15 and 29 November 2025) as well as workshops for schools and high schools. Details here.

The exhibition will be presented on the ground floor of Building C of the Museum of Art Collections, 111 Calea Victoriei. Visiting hours: Monday, Tuesday, Friday 10:00–18:00, Saturday–Sunday 11:00–19:00, Wednesday and Thursday closed. Admission: 32 lei. Free entry on the first Tuesday of each month.