George Ștefănescu

Radu Carneci wrote of him in 1984: George Ștefănescu is a great colorist who dares bring together intense colours, as though recalling the fauvistes' age.

He does it with a secret harmony descended from both the knowledge of the graphics' progress and from the inheritance creatively used, of painting on glass and other folk Romanian arts.Thus, the painter has reached a synthesis of the artistic work, with the colour, though important as it is, left in the second plane, meant to support and illustrate the idea.In this case, the colour plays the same part as with flowers – luring us so that we may better feel their essences, their fragrance.

[1]George Ștefănescu was born in 1914 in the commune of Plăinești (now Dumbrăveni, Vrancea County), between the cities of Focșani and Râmnicu Sărat.

[citation needed] In 1946–1947 he was employed at the film production company Filmul Popular, who had a laboratory in Bucharest on Strada Scaune.

In 1958 he took a position as production director at the Lucia Sturdza-Bulandra Municipal Theater (now Bulandra Theatre) in Bucharest and became a member of the Union of Creative Artists of Romania (Uniunea Artistilor Plastici din România, UAP).

The director of the theater, the actress Lucia Sturdza-Bulandra, Grande Dame of the Bucharest theatre at this time, knew him as a student of Ion Sava, a theatre professor teaching directing and set design, and in 1959 gave him the order for the stage design for the drama Când vei fi întrebat ("When You'll Be Asked") of the playwright Dorel Dorian.

That year, he also took a study trip to Timișoara and surrounding areas in western Romania, where he painted mostly landscapes and portraits of farmer.

The UAP granted him his own studio in the Gheorghe Tattarescu Memorial Museum, and he had another solo exhibition at the Sala Izvor.

The following year, he did stage design and costumes for A. I. Ștefănescu's (no relation) inquisitorial courtroom drama Camera fierbinte ("The hot room" or "The hot chamber") and had another solo exhibition in the theater, exhibiting stage settings, blueprints of costumes, oil paintings, watercolors and drawings.Misu Weinberg, one of Romania's most influential art collectors visited Ștefănescu's studio, beginning a fruitful relationship that lasted until Weinberg's death.

In 1963, Ștefănescu continued his set design and costume work with Război și pace (War and Peace) by Alfred Neumann, Erwin Piseator, and Guntram Prüfer, based on the Tolstoy novel.

The same year, he also designed sets for the Portretul (The Portrait) by Alexandru Voitin, and took a study trip to the Black Sea coast near Tuzla.

In 1965, he participated in the annual salon of the creative arts sponsored by the City of Bucharest and had a solo exhibition at the Gheorghe Tattarescu Museum.

In 1967, he returned to stage and costume design, for the play Poetul și revoluţia ("The Poet and the Revolution") about Vladimir Mayakovsky, script by Valeriu Moisescu and Dinu Negreanu.

He participated in the 1969 City of Bucharest salon of the creative arts, and designed stage costumes for the Bulandra Theatre's production of Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen.

[2] He participated in the December 1969 – February 1970 exhibition "Art roumain contemporain" in the gallery Baccache in Beirut, Lebanon and paid a study visit to Brașov.

In 1974, he did stage design for the play Între noi nu a fost decât tăcerea – (Between Us There Has Been Only Silence) by Lia Crișan; this was the last of his theater activities; after this time, he devoted himself entirely to painting; his studio in this period became a meeting place for artists, critics and collectors.

The next few years he focused on painting, with an eye toward a large exhibition; he paid study visits to Bazna, Buziaș and Covasna.

[4] In 1980, Ștefănescu participated once again in the City of Bucharest salon for the creative arts at the Dalles Gallery, and paid a study visit to Covasna.

In 1988 in the trade magazine ARTA, the art critic Theodor Redlow dedicated several pages to Ștefănescu including colour pictures of his work.

The following year, he had several exhibitions in Bremen, one at the Gallery Helmar H. Veltzke with an introduction by journalist and art historian Hans Peter Labonte, one at the Galeria Art Gallery, and an exhibition "George Ștefănescu – Neue Wege – Neue Bilder" ("New paths, new pictures") in the Queens Hotel in Bremen, with texts by Hans Peter Labonte.

Finally, in December 1990, the exhibition "Vater und Sohn im Spiegel der Kunst" ("Father and Son in the Mirror of Art") in Lüdinghausen was introduced by Dr. Jenny Sarrazin, the official responsible for cultural affairs in the district of Coesfeld.