51. The Sea at Kaliakra [1913]

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51. The Sea at Kaliakra [1913]

Ştefan Popescu

1872, Finţeşti, Buzău - 1948, Bucureşti

Not sold

Selling price

EUR 10.854

References

Exhibition catalog of graphics "Șt. Popescu", Art Museum of S.R.R., Bucharest, 1969.

oil on cardboard, 69.5 x 99 cm, signed and dated bottom right, in red, "Șt. Popescu, -1913-"

Research information

The artwork was part of the exhibition "Ștefan Popescu. The Story of Travel", Art Safari, Bucharest, 2022.

Stefan Popescu began his journey into the arts as a self-taught artist while simultaneously carrying out a fruitful activity as a teacher. He started attending specialized courses only in 1893, when he went to Munich to enroll at the Academy of Arts, where he studied drawing under the guidance of Nicolaos Gysis. In his free time, he made copies of the great masterpieces displayed at the Old Pinacoteca, which he exhibited in the windows of various bookstores. He subsequently enrolled in the painting courses of the academy in the Bavarian capital and benefited from scholarships granted by Romanian patrons. At the end of his studies, he joined the exhibition movements abroad as well as in his home country and in 1904 he opened a personal exhibition at the Bernheim Jeune & Fils gallery in Paris. In 1913, the year in which this work was also created, Stefan Popescu was enjoying a rich exhibition activity, among which was his participation in the 13th edition of the Artistic Youth (where he presented a series of native landscapes), the Paris Salon or the 11th international exhibition in Munich. From 1914 he definitively settled in his homeland and recurrently took up the pictorial theme of the southeast of the country and the much-loved Balchik amongst the artists of the time. He now exhibited alongside artists such as Jean Al. Steriadi, Gheorghe Petrașcu or Cecilia Cuțescu Storck. The focus on landscape, consistently reiterated in both painting and drawing, captured both foreign lands and transcriptions of the Danube Delta, Balcic, Râmnic Valley or Bistrița. Not city views became the central subject of Stefan Popescu's work, but the sea, the rocks and the waves. A frequent motif in that era, Cape Caliacra will constantly appear in the works of artists who were attracted by the mirage of Balchik. The stays abroad proved to be prolific in the artist's reception of the Dobrogean shores. The marine space will be rendered in intense shades of blue, in stark contrast with the tones proposed for the shore and the rocks. The dynamics of the water and the presence of the waves captured in the open create the illusion of movement and ultimately contribute to the creation of a complex work.

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