Anton Goloperntia (1909 – 1951), Sociologist, Philosopher and political prisoner who died under interogation and torture in the communist prisons, being implicated on trumped-up charges in the infamous Patrascanu Trial.
Born in the County of Caras-Severin in Southwestern Romania, a scholar and graduate of German Universities – sociologist author of a treatease on the Romanian minority population scattered in the steppes of Southern Ukraine, between the Dniester and the Bug rivers.
Between 1941 and 1944 Anton Golopentia carries out an ethnographic research on the scattered Romanian villages of the Ukrainian steppes between the Dniestre and the Bug rivers as part of the programme IREB (Identificarea Românilor de la Est de Bug).
On 16 January 1950 Anton Golopentia is arrested and following a sham trial typical of the worst excesses of witch-hunt ever known under the dictatorship: he expiates under appalling conditions of torture and neglect, 18 months after his arrest in the Vacaresti political prison.
For over forty years of Communist censorship and a further decade of pre-programmed amnesia in post-Communism, the works of Anton Golopentia could not come to print. However the results of his investigations could only be published under the care of his daughter Sanda Golopentia, Professor at Brown University in the United States. under the title „Românii de la Est de Bug” (Romanian Settlements East of River Bug).
The “Balkan”allude to the author’s maternal family
The Capsa family were of Vlach stock, from the Balkans – refugees from Moscopolis the Macedonian city which came under siege and was destroyed by the Ottomans in 1788. This caused the Capsa to seek shelter North of the Danube in Wallachia and they never looked back. They started from scratch and worked hard, improving their reputation as confectioners opening a cafe in the main avenue of Bucharest – the Calea Victoriei. This position became unassailable after Grigore Capsa went to school in Paris under the most famous confectioner Boissier. Grigore was so talented, that he became the only foreigner to be allowed to join Boissier at the Paris Exhibition. Here Capsa, presented Empress Eugenie, the spouse of Napoleon III, some of his confiseries and his reputation was made. Although he was offered to become the purveyor of the French Imperial Household Capsa returned to his family business in Bucharest. Within two generations of settling in Romania the Capsa, were appointed purveyors to the Royal family and with it they were patronised by aristocratic and professional classes.
The Capsa Cafe is Bucharest was modeled after Cafe de Flore in Paris and like its Parisian counterpart it became the meeting place for the intellectual elite of the country until WWII. This was a magnet for writers, actors and poets who made their reputation here at what used to be nicknamed the "Academy"
This was the time of the Belle Epoque when Bucharest was visited by trainloads of tourists from Western Europe coming on the Orient Express on the way to Istanbul, The capital of Romania became known as "Le Petit Paris". The french writer and diplomat Paul Morand used to come by private plane just to buy caviar and confectionery from Capsa, which by now was exported to Vienna Berlin and Paris. The whole atmosphere of joie de vivre was captured in the books of Gregor von Rezzori, Paul Morand, Marie of Edinburgh, Satcheverell Sitwell, Patrick Leigh-Fermor or Olivia Manning. This was a world which was soon going to be destroyed once the Soviet armies occupied the country to impose a communist dictatorship.
Sir Roy’s description of his family roots and childhood in pre-war Romania is epic and full of fun: he brings back to life a world which had disappeared a good six decades ago, under the sledgehammer of the Soviet occupation and their imported ideology.
the Author's Mother Mrs Micheline CAPSA in Romanian dress (centre) with her friends at her country house in the Carpathian Mountains, at Doftana
In this period picture you have a glimpse at the ‘civilised face of Romania’, which was soon going to disappear, either in exile or, for those who were left behind, to end up in the Communist Gulag; this marked the demise of the Capsa family in Romania, which coincided with the destruction of the Romanian elite.
Mrs. Micheline Capsa Redgrave, seen here in the centre of the photo was lucky enough to escape the Communist quagmire, as her English husband enabled the family to resettle in Britain. Here her son Roy Redgrave had a brilliant career in the Army, but all the Romanian properties in the Carpathians and in Bucharest were confiscated and destroyed. Roy Redgrave’s father was involved in Romania’s oil industry in the famous Ploiesti fields, not far from Doftana, where the Capsa had their estate: Micheline Capsa, the author;s mother was herself the daughter of general Capsa who distinguished himself in Romania’s war of Independence and was responsible on behalf of the Romanian Royal family for the ceremonies given during the visit of Czar Nicholas II and his family to Constanta before WWI.
In the 21st century the Capsa Hotel and Cafe were restored by their new owners but its patrons and atmosphere changed for ever: the new money grates!
The “Blue” alluded to in the title “Balkan Blue” refers to Sir Roy’s military Careers with the “Royal Blues”:indeed, Sir Roy was a Commanding Officer of the Household Cavalry Regiment in 1962 and of the Royal Horse Guards in 1964. Sir Roy Redgrave’s career made its mark during World War II on the Western front and after as Commander of the British Forces in Berlin, in 1975 and in Hong Kong (1978-1980).
He married Valerie Wellesley, a descendant of the Duke of Wellington through a long array of distinguished military figures.
The “Redgrave“ have, of course, through Sir Roy’s first cousins, a long association with the Theatre, Television and Politics. In this latter context it may not be entirely fortuitous that the actress Vanessa Redgrave got involved in the conservation of the natural and ethnographic habitat of the Transylvanian Alps, whose environment is under severe threat from the mining Industry.
This is a great read and a learning curve about life in two very different worlds – yet, regardless of such bipolar family traditions, or should it be precisely because of them, the author’s military duties make the whole world become his oyster: a task which Sir Roy performs with greatest ease, which turns the book into a most enjoyable read.
THE EMERGENCE OF THE ROMANIAN PROFESSIONAL CLASS – PLOIESTI 1900s
Romanian Royal Cavalry 'The Redcoats' (Rosiori) Regiment - whose Honorary Colonel in Chief was Princess Marie of Edinburgh, spouse of Prince Ferdinand of Hohenzollern- Heir to the Romanian throne.
From the 1840s onwards the children of Romanian nobility were educated in Paris, Rome, Vienna, Budapest or Berlin, bringing back some modern and even revolutionary ideas: manners, dress, culture, emancipation, freedom. It was only with the consolidation of Romanian monarchy first as a Principality, under Alexandru Ioan Cuza (1859-1866) and from 1866 onwards under Prince Carol of Hohenzollern that Romania was recognized as an independent Kingdom, following the 1877 War of Independence sealed by the Treaty of Berlin. As a result of these historic changes the urgent need for skilled professionals increased and Romanians started to graduate in significant numbers from native Universities in Bucharest and Iasi respectively. The peasantry remained largely illiterate with the exception of village priests who could read and write and who doubled as village teachers. By the 1880s, after the War of independence, the children of these Orthodox prelates aspired to a higher education in the cities – the daughters went to private colleges – either convent schools, often run by the Catholic nuns (Baratie cathedral School, Notre Dame de Sion) or private boarding schools (such as Pensionul Pompilian) where they were taught foreign languages, music, painting and embroidery.
From 1890s onwards we find some young ladies who, after graduating from boarding colleges or convent schools, wanted to be gain a University education at the Faculties of Pharmacy, Medicine, Architecture Law or the Music Conservatoire, although for them professional emancipation was slow to come. By contrast, their male counterparts benefited fully from the Kingdom’s economic growth to start filling civil service positions previously held by foreigners – Austrian, German or French graduates. This marked the birth and ascendancy of the native Romanian professional and political classes from 1880 to 1947.
With the occupation of the Soviet armies in 1944 and sudden imposition of a new (communist) order, those professionals who resisted the change and who practiced liberal professions (in Pharmacy, Medicine, Law, Finance or served in the Army) and did not join the Communist Party, were at best expropriated, or marginalised, left without any means of survival. This fledgling middle class was systematically destroyed by being dragged to jail on trumped up charges, forced into hard labour camps, digging the Danube-Black Sea Canal, harvesting reeds in the Danube Delta, or working as slave labour in the Carpathian copper mines.
From 1949 onwards the Communist Party devised fast-track courses for “reliable” substitutes, selected from people with no previous college education to “qualify” as engineers, leaders of Industry or hospitals: this system involved a few months of “intensive” education (…). If, as a result of incompetence, or lack of experience, the new ruling class-on-the make, failed in its duty, then the old professional class served as convenient scapegoats: by the mid 1950s, those Romanian professionals who were not yet reduced to pulp were blamed instead for the ensuing failures and charged with ‘economic sabotage’. Once the educated elite was effectively decapitated, Romania became a prison-state under the iron fist of dictators Gheorghiu-Dej (1948-1965) – an electrician and his cobbler successor Nicolae Ceausescu (1965-1989).
Doamna Stefania Livovschi (nee Burada) with her son Valeriu. ( L.A. Hirsch Ploiesti 1908. Fotografia Bulevard)
The lady seen in this photo is Stefania Burada, whose ancestors during the 19th century founded schools and parish churches in the vast steppes of the Danube Plains, which became the ‘granary of Europe’. Born in the 1880s, in rural Romania, Stefania was herself the daughter of Reverend Constantin Burada, a parish priest who founded the local rural school where he served as School Master. She was the youngest of a large brood of children most of whom died prematurely of diphtheria. From amongst these only two children survived, being isolated, away from home, on the country estate of their maternal grandfather’s himself a priest in another village of the Danube Plains. Stefania and her younger brother Constantin reached adulthood, both of them receiving higher education: Constantin Burada read Law in Bucharest to become a judge at the High Court of Appeal (Inalta Curte de Casatie), whilst Stefania was educated at the Pompilian Boarding College in Calea Rahovei, Bucharest. Here she proved to be a gifted pupil in the class of a Transylvanian painter, Sava Hentia (1848 – 1904), who was schooled at the Accademia di Luca in Rome. This famous art school, founded in the 17th century, produced an array of artists of international repute, such as Simon Vouet, Charles Le Brun, Antonio Canova, to name just a few.
At the Pompilian College Stefania Burada became a close friend of Ecaterina Livovschi who like herself was the daughter of an Orthodox prelate, a teacher of Religious Education and Rector of St Nicholas cathedral in Tulcea. Ecaterina went on to study Medicine to become an Ophtalmologist. Stefania married Ecaterina’s eldest brother Vicentiu a graduate in Pharmacy, from the University of Bucharest. In the early 1900s the couple settled in Ploiesti, where Vicentiu bought a short lease on a Pharmacy.
Vicentiu Livovschi as Captain of the Tulcea Regiment of the Royal Romanian Army. After graduating in Pharmacy at the University of Bucharest he married and leased at Ploiesti the "Farmacia Mihai Bravul"
The Livovschi offspring were all born before WWI (the eldest of whom is seen in the picture above, with his mother). All children became University went to University Applied Chemistry and Pharmacy or modern languages.
At the turn of the century Ploiesti was a booming city with a fast economic growth, due to the oil Industry. Oil was extracted on an industrial scale since 1856 to make Romania Europe’s second largest oil producer, after Russia. Here were present French, Dutch, Belgian, American and British oil companies drilling for oil and refining it locally to export it from the Danube ports to Central Europe or respectively from the Black Sea port of Constanta to Western Europe. By the early 1900s when the Livovschi moved to Ploiesti the surrounding countryside looked like the American ‘Wild West’, with a forest of oil derricks and Canadian pumps called ‘nodding donkeys’.
Before WWI Stefania’s family gained in Ploiesti a high profile and social status as her husband got the lease of a main pharmacy in downtown – the “Farmacia Mihai Bravu”.
"Farmacia Mihai Bravul" Ploiesti leased by Vicentiu Livovschi (seen on the balcony with his wife and son) Photo 1908. The man in a three-piece suit standing in front of the Pharmacy entrance below is the father of the composer Paul Constantinescu.
The pharmacy belonged to a Mr Schmettau (probably an Austrian national) and was leased for a period of five years (1906-1911) to the 30-years old Romanian pharmacist, Vicentiu Livovschi. Vicentiu represented the first generation of home-grown professional middle classes, educated in Romania. Beyond his professional activity he played the violin whilst his two sisters, Ecaterina a graduate in Medicine and Emilia a Pharmacist played the cello and the violin respectively. Together the three siblings founded in Ploiesti the first classic music orchestra – “The Excelsior”. Although Vicentiu and Stefania were newcomers to Ploiesti they already had in the city several uncles, one of whom, Reverend Anghel Burada a paternal uncle was rector of St Basil Orthodox Church (Biserica Sf Vasile) and a maternal uncle Rev. Chiriac Dobreanu was Rector of Sf Ilie Tabaci Orthodox Church. So far as the intermarriages were concerned it is noteworthy that that the wife of Rev Anghel Burada, known as ‘Mitza Presbitera’, or ‘Coana Mitza’, was related to the artist painter George Ioachim Pompilian, who in 1872 was busy painting the iconostasis of St Basil church Ploiesti. Ioachim Pompilian studied Fine Arts at the Accademia di San Lucca in Rome and was himself the son of yet another Orthodox prelate, Reverend Ioachim Ioachimescu, One must recall that Stefania Livovschi, nee Burada, was educated at the Pompilian College run by Ioachim’s family, which was related to her uncle the Rev Anghel Burada. Ioachim Pompilian went on to restore and decorate the internal frescoes of the Metropolitan cathedral in Bucharest.
Judging from the perspective of narrow family angle one could say on the whole that the social life in Ploiesti during the 1900s was very tightly knit, being based on strong tribal links. This is understandable, as all family cousins in Ploiesti were part of the new crop of professionals destined to play a crucial part in the economic, social and political life of interwar Romania, a pattern which was replicated throughout the country. The Livovschi family passage through Ploiesti was curtailed by the First Balkan War when Vicentiu was conscripted to serve as a Captain in the Royal Romanian Army which occupied Bulgaria. As a result of this war Romania gained the territory of Southern Dobrogea which included Balcik a seaside village made fashionable by Queen Marie who built a retreat there: artists soon followed suit to form a small colony known as the “School of Balcic” – of post-Impressionist and fauvist persuasion. On being demobbed and returning to Ploiesti Vicentiu was faced by Mr Schmettau requiring a substantial increase in renewing his lease. As a result, by 1914 we find vicentiu Livovschi a Pharmacist owner of the “Drogheria Centrala” opposite the Townhall of Buzau. (see THE EMERGENCE OF THE ROMANIAN PROFESSIONAL CLASS (2) – BUZAU – 1914 – 1948)
St Basil Orthodox Cathedral church (biserica Sf. Vasile) Ploiesti - marble plaque commemorating Rev. Anghel Burada
Belfry of St Ilie-Tabaci Orthodox parish church Ploiesti, where Rev Chiriac Dobreanu was Rector at the end of the 19th century (Photo courtesy Eyebrowed, flickr)
Rev Chiriac Dobreanu (ca 1850-1910), rector of Sf Ilie Tabaci Orthodox church, Ploiesti and maternal uncle of Stefania Burada. He had eight children all of whom were graduates.
En fait, avant que les Slaves n’envahissent Domnikia, on appelait toujours les fils sans nom des traînées avec un court et tranchant : « Hé, toi ! », et les serfs rampaient avec empressement vers leurs maîtres.
Les Domnikios ont été des seigneurs depuis des temps immémoriaux : ils sont toujours venus au monde pour être des seigneurs. En vérité, ils se vantaient de descendre en droite ligne des empereurs byzantins et, à travers eux, d’une foule d’empereurs romains et de figures mythiques de l’Ancien Testament, allant ainsi jusqu’à Adam. À une époque plus récente, celle dont le souvenir garde la trace, il a été reconnu que les Domnikios ont continûment régné sur la Principauté de Domnikia, quelque part dans les terres sauvages du tourbillon balkanique — et ce n’est qu’un débat académique que de savoir si la Principauté de Domnikia a ainsi été nommée d’après les Domnikios, ou si, au contraire, les Domnikios ont donné ce nom aux terres sur lesquelles, des siècles durant, ils ont régné sans partage en Despotes ou DOMNI. Car il y a ici un autre mystère quant à l’origine de ce nom dont les Domnikios sont si fiers : leurs hagiographes affirment sans l’ombre d’un doute que le mot « Domnikios » proviendrait du mot latin DOMINUS, contracté, des siècles plus tard, en « DOMN », ce qui signifie « seigneur » dans la langue vernaculaire domnikienne. Et cela démontre avec force que les Domnikios étaient destinés à être des chefs. Mieux encore : comme le latin « Dominus » signifie « Dieu », l’ancienneté domnikienne implique le fait qu’au début, ils étaient aussi des Dieux, ou des Dieux-régnants à Domnikia. Ainsi le veut la tradition depuis la plus haute antiquité, lorsque les attributs des souverains absolus se confondaient toujours avec ceux de la divinité. C’est pour cela que les prières orthodoxes domniqiennes s’ouvrent à chaque fois sur la phrase :
« Au commencement, ce fut Domn, et Domn était Dieu, et Dieu était Roi, et ils n’étaient qu’une et unique Foi, et cette Foi s’appelait Domnikios, le Dieu-Roi qui régnait sur Domnikia. »
« Au commencement, ce fut Domn, et Domn était Dieu, et Dieu était Roi, et ils n’étaient qu’une et unique Foi, et cette Foi s’appelait Domnikios, le Dieu-Roi qui régnait sur Domnikia. »
Rien ne saurait être plus différent des Domnikios que les Tovaras : ceux-ci n’avaient ni ancêtres ni histoire — ils étaient des parvenus. En fait, les Tovaras savaient — et, à leur tour, les Domnikios ne le savaient que trop bien — que les Tovaras étaient contemporains des Domnikios, car ils avaient été créés à la même époque, et que leur destin était d’être « le sel de la terre », puisqu’ils devaient être les esclaves perpétuels des Domni. Mais les Tovaras ne pouvaient le prouver, car ils n’avaient jamais eu une terre à eux, leur progéniture ne portaient pas des noms patronymiques, ils n’avaient jamais été mentionnés par les chroniques de la Principauté Domnikienne et, par conséquent, les Tovaras, tout simplement, « n’existaient pas ». Les enfants des Tovaras naissaient toujours esclaves, ils portaient toujours le nom de leurs mères, parce qu’ils ne savaient jamais qui était le père. En revanche, de temps à autre, on pouvait leur permettre de porter le nom de l’endroit où ils étaient venus au monde sur les terres domnikiennes. Mais, en dépit de ces circonstances, les Domnikios ne pouvaient survivre sans les Tovaras, car, ainsi que le veut l’ancienne sagesse, chaque chef a, par définition, besoin d’un serf, tout comme chaque fouet de cirque, afin de se justifier et de pouvoir s’affranchir, a besoin d’un lion dressé.
Mais il y a une chose bien plus profonde qui distingue les Domnikios des Tovaras : c’est la qualité meme de néologisme du mot « Tovaras ». Car l’étymologie de « Tovaras » n’est nullement latine, mais slave, et les Slaves sont arrivés tard dans ces lointaines contrées, très tard dans l’histoire de Domnikia. Ce sont les Slaves qui ont donné le nom « Tovaras » aux serfs sans nom, car ils semblaient peu engageants et ainsi ils les ont appelé « Tovaritch ». En fait, avant que les Slaves n’envahissent Domnikia, on appelait toujours les fils sans nom des traînées avec un court et tranchant : « Hé, toi ! », et les serfs rampaient avec empressement vers leurs maîtres. Mais, maintenant, que leurs terres avaient été piétinées et leurs attributs diminués, les Domnikios, qui ont toujours et de manière congénitale zézayé, ont édicté que les serfs devaient recevoir le nom de « Tovaras », comme une sorte d’acceptation de mauvaise grâce de l’intrusion slave dans les affaires féodales de la Principauté Domnikienne.
Et c’est ainsi que les malheurs ont commencé, que la vie est devenue infernale, et nous allions assister à des siècles de guerres civiles entre les Domnikios et les Tovaras, que, de temps à autre, interrompaient des courtes périodes de silencieuse coexistence.
Romanian Foreign Affairs (I): Rebecca WEST and Antoine BIBESCO
Rebecca West - a rapturous affair with Prince Antoine Bibesco
Dame Rebecca WEST(1892-1983) Anglo-Irish journalist, author, travel writer and literary critic. Her commitment to feminism and liberal principles made her one of the 20th century foremost women writers. She wrote regularly for the New Yorker. Her coverage of the Nuremberg Trials, her book on Yugoslav history Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, or The New Meaning of Treason, a study of World War II and Communist traitors represent some of her significant contributions to British literature.
In one of her classic quips West said:
There is, of course, no reason for the existence of the male sex except that sometimes one needs help with moving the piano.
One such ‘need’ of ‘male sex’ caused West more than just ‘move her piano’- it left her with an indelible experience it unhinged the foundations of her feminism and caused her to seek urgent help from a shrink, as related by her biographer Victoria Glendinning:
In Paris, on her way home, she had a brief affair with Prince Antoine Bibesco (who wore black crepe de chine in bed), a Romanian diplomat married to Elizabeth Asquith, daughter of the Liberal leader. In the 1930s she was to lunch at the French embassy in London and find that the principal guest was Elizabeth Bibesco and that every other woman guest was a former mistress of Antoine Bibesco: ‘I suppose some Attache’s little joke’. She was to remember her own affair as ‘rapturous’ but at its close felt that some blight still affected her personal life. The evidence suggests that Bibesco’s sophisticated sex inventiveness frightened Rebecca and that she interpreted it as a further manifestation of male hostility and aggression and she continued in analysis when she returned to London this time with Silvia Payne another early Freudian. Nevertheless the elation of her first days with Bibesco coloured the writing of ‘The Strange Necessity’ in which her meditations on art and literature are embedded in an account of a ‘sun gilded autumn day’ wandering through a magically illuminated Paris.
(“Rebecca West – A Life”, by Victoria Glendinning, op cit 121,Fawcet Columbine, New York, 1987)
Rebecca West; "Black Lamb and Grey Falcon" - whilst writing this book she met again Prince Bibesco in Belgrade but was anxious not to include this passage in her book
Although Rebecca West felt that her Romanian affair did sufficient damage to her psyche by compelling her to recourse to the services of a psychoanalyst, soon after she discarded her misgivings in order to have a ‘second helping’, this time in Belgrade, as she consumed a further tryst with – Antoine Bibesco. On this occasion she was writing her classic opus ‘Black Lamb and Grey Falcon‘, although this time discretion dictated that nothing untoward transpired in her book about her ‘boudoir athlete’…
Prince Antoine BIBESCO - left an indelible impression on Rebecca WEST
Prince Antoine BIBESCO (1878-1951) He was a patron of the arts and in particular of Vuillard, Bonnard, and Marcel Proust, a diplomat in St Petersburg, London, Madrid and Washington DC, a polymath and society rake with an appetite for seduction. He was the grandson of George Bibescu (1804-1873), ruling Prince of Wallachia and a son-in-law of British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith.
Nicolson was a respected author, succesful politician, respected broadcaster and diplomatist. His marriage to Vita Sackville-West could only be described as unique.The diaries allow us insights behind closed doors in Cabinet in the 1940s and also witty, succinct portraits of personalities Nicolson knew.
Amongst these there a brief insightful portrait of King Carol II of Romania, whom Harold Nicolson visited in Bucharest:
I lunched with the King. At 12-30 I said that I must dress for luncheon. As I walked upstairs I felt strangely giddy. the staircase seemed to shift and wobble. I was appalled. Suppose I came over faint during my luncheon?. That would be hell. I arrayed myself miserably in the tail coat of Rex Hoare (the British Minister), which would not, I regret, meet in front. But it looked allright. Then i espied the bottle of Sal Volatile. I corked it tightly and put it in my pocket, in fact the only pocket which I could call my own, my trouser pocket. Then off I went.
At the palace an aide-de-camp in stays and aiguillettes arrived and made polite conversation. Then a lift hummed and two pekinese darted in barking followed by the King (Carol) in naval uniform. I bowed. he greeted me with affection and respect. We passed into the dining room. I sat on his right. The aide-de-camp sat on his left. The pekinese sat on his knee. We started conversation.
He had ordered he said, a purely Romanian luncheon. God, it was good! In spite of my feeling so faint, I gobbled hard. We talked agreeably. He is a bounder, but less of a bounder than he seemed in London. He was more at ease. His Windsor blue eyes were wistful and he had something behind them. He spoke with intelligence about Chamberlain and Eden and the Italian Agreement and the French cabinet and the league of Nations. He was well-informed and most sensible. We kept all debating topics away.
I was beginning to enjoy my conversation when I was aware of a cold trickle and the smell of ammonia. I thrust my hand into my pocket. It was too late. The Sal has indeed proved Volatile and my trousers were rapidly drenched. I seized my napkins and began mopping surreptitiously. My remarks became bright and rather fevered, but quite uninterrupted. I mopped secretly while the aroma od Sal Volatile rose above the smell of grujhenskoia.
This was agony. I secretly heard what he was saying: ‘Have you’ he was asking ‘recovered your land-legs yet? After three days in the train one feels the room rocking like after three days at sea’. So that was it! Why on earth had he not told me before and now it was too late. I recovered my composure and dropped my sodden napkin. The conversation followed normal lines. At 2.45 he rose abruptly. I rose too, casting a terrified glance at the plush seat of my chair. It bore a deep wet stain. What, o what, will the butler think? he will only think one thing.
(Harold Nicolson Diaries, op cit 185-186, Edited by Nigel Nicolson, Phoenix paperback, Weidenfeld and Niocholson, 511 pages, London 2004, ISBN 0-75381-997-X)
Maria Mesterou – Galerie Etienne de Causans, Paris 6e, 17-26 Mai 2010
Maria Mesterou - Galerie Etienne de Causans, Paris 6e, 17-26 Mai 2010
MARIA MESTEROU – artiste peintre
Maria Mestérou
Née en Roumanie, diplômée de l’Institut des Arts Plastiques de Bucarest, commence sa carrière d’artiste dans des expositions officielles. Faisant partie d’un groupe de jeunes artistes non-conformistes, peint pendant de longs séjours de « plein air » dans un village des Carpates. Part pour la France à l’occasion d’une exposition personnelle de peinture en 1970, et décide d’y rester. S’installe à Paris et reçoit la nationalité française.
Un atelier de la Ville de Paris lui permet de se consacrer pleinement à la peinture et à l’estampe. Dès son arrivée, conçoit et imprime ses œuvres en sérigraphie, les édite et les diffuse avec les Éditions La Tortue, Pierre Hautot, Art Extension, Rombaldi (Paris), ainsi que les « Éditions Galleries » de Melbourne (Australie). Participe avec ces éditeurs et galeries à quelques expositions internationales, est invitée aux principales biennales de l’estampe. De nombreuses expositions personnelles dans les Galeries La Tortue, Pierre Hautot (Paris), Jan De Maere (Bruxelles), J-M. Cupillard (Grenoble), Éditions Galleries (Melbourne).
Maria Mesterou: "Alexandra"
Après 1985 réduit son activité de graveur-sérigraphe pour se consacrer encore davantage à la peinture. Expose pendant longtemps au Salon Grands et Jeunes d’Aujourd’hui, ensuite au Salon d’Automne dont elle devient membre sociétaire. Travaille avec la Galerie Rolf Wahl (Paris), mais aussi avec les galeries La Pochade, de Champvermeil, Catherine Guerard (Paris), Catherine Fernet (Bruxelles) et Cegrac (La Corogne, Espagne). Édite des cartes de vœux pour U.N.E.S.C.O.
Réalise des peintures murales, commandes d’État au titre de 1%, pour quelques écoles dans la Région Parisienne. Œuvres dans les collections de l’État français, de la Ville de Paris, de la Préfecture des Hauts de Seine, de la Compagnie Financière Edmond de Rothschild, de la fondation Pernot-Ricard, du Musée de Gravelines. Œuvres dans quelques fondations et collections officielles aux États Unis et dans de nombreuses collections privées en France et dans le monde entier.
Médaille de Bronze du Mérite Français pour les Arts Plastiques. Prix du Salon de Vésinet 1977. Invitée périodiquement pour enseigner la peinture et ses techniques, dans des stages de formation à la Manufacture des Gobelins et Mobilier National (Paris).
Prépare une exposition à la Galerie Étienne de Causans, Paris, pour le 17 mai 2010.
Christopher Georgesco – First-Generation Romanian-American Sculptor – (b. 1950, Nebraska)
Christopher’s parents fled Communist Romania in the nick of time, in 1948, literally with the last boat, just as the Iron Curtain was coming down and before Romania turned into a huge prison-state and the country’s elite was going to perish in Soviet-style gulags, or die in the harshest prisons, their bodies thrown into unmarked graves.
Christopher’s father Haralamb Georgesco (1908-1977) was part of this very professional elite targeted by the new regime which was installed by the Soviet occupation armies: he was a famous architect and associate of Horia Creanaga and had a thriving and successful architect’s practice in Bucharest. Amogst Haralamb Georgesco’s clients figured the young King Michael of Romania, the industrialist Malaxa to name just two patrons. Georgesco left behind in Romania a heritage of modernist architecture which stands out, some 80 years on as one of the world’s most inspired buildings of that period. Yet political circumstance forced Haralamb Georgesco and his beautiful wife to flee Romania at the peak of his success and arrive in New York as a penniless immigrant. Starting from scratch in middle age was far from easy in his adoptive country, but he struggled on valiantly first by taking a University teaching job and gradually receiving private commissions both in the USA and abroad. Two years after their arrival their only son Christopher was born.
Christopher Georgesco (2008): "Yellow camber Right", Beverly Hills, Ca
Like his father, Christopher is a talented and inspired artist: he attended the Santa Monica City College in 1968 and by the age of 20 he part took in his first group show. At the age of 28 Christopher had his first one-man show. Subsequently and with great determination he put his mark on the Californian and the International artistic map, with an impressive array of monumental sculptures:
"Installation View" (Painted Stainless Steel by Christopher Georgesco), private Collection, Bel Air, Ca, (by kind permission)
Grand Hyatt Hotel., Tokyo. Japan, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, La Jolla Musem of Contemporary Art, CA, Laguna Beach Museum of Contemporary Art, CA, Santa Barabra Museum of Art, CA, University of California Los Angeles, CA, University of California Santa Barbara, CA, Pasadena City College, Pasadena, CA, Plaza Pasadena, City of Pasadena, CA, Valley Presbyterian Hospital, Los Angeles, CA, King World Productions, Merv Griffin, Los Angeles, CA, Knapp Communicatons, Los Angeles,CA, McCrory Corporate, New York, NY, Raychem Copporation, Los Angeles, CA, Sea Horse Corporate, Manzanillo, Mexico, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, “Oasis of the Sea”, Installation Finland, Princes Cruise Lines, Installation Italy, Smithsonian Archives of American Art, Washington, DC, City of Palm Springs, CA
