Roxana Scripcaru
Head of the Romanian Postmodern & Contemporary Art Evaluation Office
15. Self-portrait with Cigarette [1984]
The photos of the lot are informative and indicative, and cannot provide a highly detailed view of the object from all angles. We recommend a careful physical inspection of the lot before bidding.
15. Self-portrait with Cigarette [1984]
1929, Botoşani - 2003, Bucureşti
Estimate:
EUR 3.000 - 5.000
Sold
EUR 4.500
References
"C. Piliuță", Alexandru Cebuc, ARC 2000, Bucharest, 2002. "Constantin Piliuță. Culoare de zenit", University of Bucharest Publishing House, Bucharest, 2021.
oil on canvas, 54 x 54 cm, 54 Ã 54 cm, signed and dated bottom right, with pencil "C. Piliuță, (19)84"
Research information
The artwork is reproduced in the monograph "C. PiliuÈÄ", Alexandru Cebuc, ARC 2000, Bucharest, 2002.
Often captured in photographs, portraits or self-portraits with a lit cigarette, "the poet of imagination, as Constantin Piliuță was nicknamed by art critics, was a rebellious artist, especially before 1989. As the requests of the communist party did not resonate with his personal conceptions, Piliuță chose to be rebellious, which raised numerous questions regarding his reputation during the communist era. Still, he was bound to find the appreciation he was seeking outside the country's borders - as proven by the praising chronicles issued in the Italian press following the two personal exhibition held by the artist in 1984 in Rome. One constant in Piliuță's work was portrait painting. Alongside some portraits dedicated to important personalities of Romanian culture (Tudor Arghezi, Val Mugur, Constantin Stroescu), Piliuță also focused on his own representation across time. Portrait drawing gave him the necessary principles for him to reveal his deeply psychological intuition. He successfully emphasized his personal view, by drawing some unusual grimaces or a specific body language, which he conveyed from his model's gestures. In those instances when the model looked back at him in the mirror, the artist made use of his self-representation on canvas, in order to initiate a social and political manifesto. He evoked his daily through the use of symbols (the cigarette, the glass - which we also find in the artist's signature). He wagered on theatricality and fixing meanings, transforming the self-portraits series in a "journal of ages". Young Piliuță's energy was transposed into fauve-inspired colours, yet this approach to colour was highly diminished along the way. The transpositions of his own image on canvas have evolved from his youth, a stage loaded with lively colours and a prominent brush stroke, to the extensive calculation of colour and its careful spreading on canvas, as it happens in the current work.
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SESSION
Brought to you by
Roxana Scripcaru
Head of the Romanian Postmodern & Contemporary Art Evaluation Office
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