Centre for Romanian Studies

Great Romanians: Dimitrie STIUBEI (1901-1986)

Dimitrie Stiubei (1901-1986)

To paint the sea is not difficult: it is very difficult! This is why the greatest artists of all times, avoided this type of subject, which is very odd if one considers that the sea  represents two thirds of the surface of the earth.
Even nations with a history and tradition intimately linked to sea faring could not describe it through painting without a compromise: that is of painting sailing boats and sea battles without painting actually the waves.

Dimitrie Stiubei (1901-1986)

By contrast, Dimitrie Stiubei, placed the sea waves at the centre of his compositions, the open sea, towards the infinite horizon, where the sea meets the sky.
An ex naval officer Stiubei spent almost his entire life at sea. He did not become a painter by chance neither was he self-taught. He studied painting first from his mentor Jean Steriadi (1880-1986) and then as a student of the Munich Academy of Painting under Ernst Liebermann (1869-1960) and Peter Trumm (1888-1966):

Reference Letter of Prof. Peter Trumm of Munich (1929)

Peter Trumm described him as follows:

… blessed with an extraordinary talent, a vivid intelligence and a feeling about the  true  essence of painting, Dimitrie Stiubei surpassed all expectations through his military education. Within a very short time he developed his artistic capacity in an amazing manner. The sum total of his oeuvre, without any doubt, is very strong indeed, especially in portrait and marine painting.

Dimitrie Stiubei exhibited extensively in Paris, Athens, Geneva, Basel, Lugano and New York. He also exhibited at the Royal Society of Marine Artists in London.
The artist was honoured with the French Légion d’honneur and in the seventies he was decorated with the Vermeille medal from the Society of Arts, Sciences and Letters.

This is only a small part of his curriculum. During his long span of life at sea he neither fought the sea nor was he awed by it, like most people: instead he loved it and spent the  most beautiful moments of his life in its company.

This is how the artist was able to paint and imortalise those magic moments of intensity which the sea offers to the those who understand it.

After his retrospective exhibition in the United States, in 1970, The New York Herald Tribune called him:

‘the last and the greatest painter of the sea, of our epoch’.

Dimitrie Stiubei (1901-1986)

NOTE: text modified from the catalogue of Dimitrie Stiubei retrospective exhibition in Italy. (original text and illustrations –  Mario Ricci)

Dimitrie Stiubei (1901-1986)