A citizen of Romania after the union of 1918, he was forced to drop out of school by economic circumstances, and worked for years in various industries and businesses, while also discovering his passion for beekeeping and gardening.

He was drawn into far-left politics during the Great Depression, when he came to be influenced by radical artists such as Alexandru Ziffer, Aurel Popp, Vasile Kazar and Iosif Klein, who also introduced him to avant-garde experimentation.

Having trained as a gunner in the Romanian Land Forces, Vida made repeated attempts at joining the International Brigades fighting in the Spanish Civil War.

[1] However, the artist's paternal ancestors were ethnic Romanians from the Austrian Empire: grandfather Simion Vida was a Greek Catholic from Iapa, working at the hammermill of Nagybánya (Baia Mare).

[12] He had by then become encouraged by the artistic boom of his native city: the Baia Mare School was experiencing its peak moment and, Vida recalled, "easels and working painters were on every street corner.

[16] While he could no longer pursue training in art, Vida still drew, sculpted and carved, also taking advice from vacationing artists such as Petre Abrudan, Alexandru Ciucurencu and Jenő Szervánszky.

[19] As Romania's mining industry was heavily hit in the Great Depression, in 1929–1932 Baia Mare became the center of a growing protest movement and an electoral pool for the PCdR's Peasant Workers' Bloc.

[21] A fellow artist, Iosif Klein, took him into his communist art club and began influencing him politically; Vida turned to more explicitly revolutionary themes, including his first-ever portraits of peasant rebels such as Horea and Pintea.

Published in Bányai Lapok, it praised Vida as a "man of the future" and enemy of all things kitsch, noting the interest that art collectors were taking in his sculptures.

[39] Eventually, in October 1937, Vida set out on his clandestine journey to Spain: telling his mother that he was merely taking a trip to Izvoarele, he backpacked along Boczor and another activist into Czechoslovakia, rallying with other volunteers at Veľká Sevljuš.

As "Grigore", Vida illustrated the prisoners' political magazine with images of the home country, and produced linocuts of his internment; these were paid by other inmates with extra rations of food.

[61] Following the fall of France in June 1940, Vida's former colleagues of Gurs destroyed most of his surviving works, preventing their seizure by Nazi occupiers; though an attempt was made to smuggle some of his sculptures to Paris, they were lost in the confusion.

[69] Signing up to a Popp's manifesto, which reestablished the Baia Mare Trade Union as an explicitly socialist and democratic club, Vida was still in uniform and stationed at the garrison in Cluj to August 1945.

[82] The sculptor's son Gheorghe notes that these attacks referred to Vida Sr's lack of interest in Socialist Realism and Soviet art, since he felt bothered by their "photographic rendition of reality and new-man optimism.

This was widely praised by the official press: in Scînteia, engraver Ligia Macovei noted that it was superior to most other works presented at the time, "suffused with ideas" and displaying "authentic figures".

[94] Co-opted by the People's Democratic Front (formed around the PMR), Vida took a seat in the Great National Assembly after the election of that February; he represented Ocna Șugatag.

[95] Alongside Kazar, Vida organized a retrospective of his work in 1958, earning much praise from critics Petru Comarnescu, Dan Hăulică and Eugen Schileru; also in 1957, he presented sculptures at the Venice Biennale Romanian pavilion and the Socialist Art Exhibit in Moscow.

Exhibits of Vida's art were frequent over the following years, and included a special showing of his Saint-Cyprien and Gurs linocuts at the Republican Palace, marking the PMR's 50th anniversary in 1961.

[97] Government indicted him into its Order of Labor, 1st Class, and arranged for his work to also be displayed in Warsaw; in 1964, it also bestowed upon him its highest professional recognition, deeming him an Artist of the People.

[15] Made of white stone, the monument is 18 m wide, 5 m deep, and 12 m high; situated on the site of the Battle of Carei, it commemorates the soldiers fallen in the struggles for the liberation of the homeland.

It was initially a composition bringing together twelve sessile oaks handpicked by Vida and carved by him to resemble "characters from the Maramureș folk stories"; from 1972, he replaced them with more durable stone reproductions.

[103] According to travel notes by writer Geo Bogza, it was perfectly comparable to Constantin Brâncuși's more famous monumental complex in Târgu Jiu, tough also inspired by the Dacian sanctuary of Sarmizegetusa Regia.

[104] Critic Constantin Prut referred to Vida's work as his "act of patriotism", "the most expressive and most stirring sculptural ensemble in these last decades of Romanian art.

[110] As argued by political scientist Vladimir Tismăneanu, such promotions signaled to the world that Ceaușescu was restoring links with the PCdR old guard—including veterans of Spain such as Vida, Roman, and Petre Borilă.

"[114] Vida's ensemble "Council of Elders" was awarded a grand prize by the State Committee of Culture and the Arts in 1971, and was permanently displayed in downtown Baia Mare from 1974.

[118] Art critic Ion Frunzetti covered the latter event, writing that "in today Romania's cultural metabolism, Gheza Vida is an element as necessary as air and water.

"[119] In 1973, Vida, Ciucurencu and Corneliu Baba sent some of their works to be permanently displayed by the Museum of Solidarity in Socialist Chile; these arrived in the country shortly after the right-wing military coup, and are presumed lost.

[121] Not having registered as a candidate in the March 1969 election, he ran on the Front of Socialist Unity list during the race of 1975, taking a seat reserved for Vișeu de Sus.

[124] A 1978 depiction of Christ was heavily inspired by a wayside cross in Berbești, with only the most minimal carvings to a contorted pear-trunk; this "archetypal" period also produced totem poles which decorated Vida's house or were gifts to his friends.

That month, a Gheza Vida bust, created by Ioan Marchiș, was unveiled downtown; the ceremony was also attended by Romanian Orthodox Church officials who recited his parastas.