Marcel OLINESCU, Country Woman (Banat)

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woodcut, paper
13 x 9 cm
signed lower right under the plate: Marcel Olinescu
named lower left under the plate: Țărănci (Banat)
good state of conservation


Marcel OLINESCU (1896, Dorohoi - 1992, Bucharest, Romania)
Artistic education: School of Fine Arts in Iași (1919-1921); Creative Colony Baia Mare (1920); National School of Fine Arts in Bucharest (1921-1923), under the guidance of Professor Dimitrie PACIUREA.
Between 1925 and 1978, he organized 18 personal exhibitions (Bucharest, Botoșani, Arad, Deva) and participated in 22 group exhibitions and official salons.
An artist generously represented by numerous works present on the shelves of the ART Depot, he comes to illustrate synthetically the stylistic directions of Romanian graphics in the 20th century. Born in Moldova, a student in Bucharest and active for many years in Arad as a drawing teacher and editor, he was a founding member of the Pro Arte group (1936-1937), which aimed to present the Romanian cultural phenomenon in conjunction with the Hungarian one.
Settled in Bucharest, since 1937 he has been exhibiting at the Official Salon of Drawing and Engraving (1928-1947) and participating in the socio-ethnographic campaigns of professor Dimitrie Gusti. He received the engraving prize at the Official Salon (1928, 1933, 1938) and was a laureate of the "Lecomte de Noüy" Prize (1929). He created several albums of engravings inspired mainly by Romanian folk folklore and popular mythology.
Marcel Olinescu's engravings "are above all philosophical meditations on life and death, man and nature in a vision close to the primitive simplicity of icons on glass and peasant painting on wood". (Mariana Vida, "Romanian Graphics 1900-1945", in Art in Romania from Prehistory to the Present, vol. II, Romanian Academy Publishing House, Bucharest & Mega Publishing House Cluj-Napoca, 2018, pp. 503-533).

More details about the artist's life and work in the blog article:
https://depozituldearta.wordpress.com/2020/06/18/marcel-olinescu-artist-etnolog-sub-semnul-mitului/