136. Drawing Lessons

Influenced probably by his path as well, both professionally and personally, Dimitrescu would successively dedicate, in the most important points of his style, compositions which exclusively placed the human being in the centre point of their strongest interest. Although, on the aesthetic level, Ștefan Dimitrescu was strongly influenced both by his Iași phase, the Academist stage - with Gheorghe Popovic as a professor at the Iași Academy of Fine Arts - as well as his Paris period, where he came into contact with Impressionism, but also with the creation of Toulouse-Lautrec, the painter would soon find his own path. This was due to materialise in the third decade of the last century, at a time when the painter was perfecting a personal style which was going to propel him amongst the Romanian artistic elite. His creations dedicated to mankind did not remain at a "sterile" portrait level, but just like for his friend Tonitza, who was experimenting with the portrait and character composition in his own well-known style, Dimitrescu manages to mould works that overpass a single thematic reference point. This aesthetic component would be felt in all his character paintings, but even more strongly for those featuring family members or close friends (see the portraits of the Tonitza couple and children, or the portraits of the Teodoreanu couple). The current work is easily included in this group, Margareta being illustrated in a strongly intimate scene, of a playful tendency - the child at play, drawing at her father's desk. Painted in the second half of the 1920s, a period in which he achieves most of his works with a familiy-related theme - such as "Mother and Children" (1928), "Safta Dimitrescu" (1925-1926) - "Margareta Drawing" completes this family cycle. (I.P.)

Dimensions

width 50 cm, height 60 cm, custom 60 × 50 cm

Description

oil on cardboard, signed bottom left, with violet, Șt. Dimitrescu"

Lot.material_carats

ulei pe carton

Research information

A version of the artwork can be found in the Dinu and Sevasta Vintilă Museum's patrimony, in Topalu. The artwork was part of the exhibition "Grupul celor patru" in 1926. The artwork is reproduced under the title "Fetiță la pupitru" in the volume "Grupul celor patru", Doina Păuleanu, Monitorul Oficial Publishing House, Bucharest, 2011, p. 138. The artwork is reproduced in the monograph "Tonitza. Imagini ale copilăriei", Mureș County Museum, 2019, at p. 198.

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