George Löwendal

George Baron Löwendal (born May 10, 1897 in Saint Petersburg , † February 18, 1964 in Bucharest ) was a Romanian painter and set designer of Russian - Danish origin.

George Löwendal was born as the son of the artillery officer and later general of the Russian army Baron Lorentius Løwendal (II.) And the Russian officer's daughter Liubov (Aimée) Gavrischova. He studied art from 1914 to 1917 in Saint Petersburg under the guidance of Govelij (Savelij) Shoel Moshkov Seidenberg , Aleksandr Makovsky and Aleksandr Petrovitsch Aleksandrov . His family perished during the Russian Revolution, he himself came to Bessarabia, a region that from 1918 fell from Russia back to Romania, where he found his new home. From 1918 to 1945 he then worked at several theaters in Romania as a stage painter and set designer, where he produced innovative structures for around 200 plays from the Romanian and foreign repertoire without outside help. At the same time he worked as a draftsman and painter. As a set designer, he was at times inspired by Expressionism, with his portrait painting remaining committed to realism.

In 1921 he married the art-loving law student Ariadna Ambrosijewa in Chișinău , who had a lasting influence on his work. 1921–1926 he moved to Bucharest, where he learned the Romanian language and worked as a set designer and director at several theaters. In 1923 and 1925, respectively, his two daughters Lydia and Irina were born, who later became well-known artists themselves. Between 1926 and 1935 he worked as a stage painter, set designer and technical director of the National Theater in Chernivtsi .

In 1927 he tried to found the first puppet theater in Chișinău, in 1929 he advocated the establishment of the Bucharest open-air museum Muzeul Satului and determined its location. In 1931 he gave the impetus to found the first society of visual artists in Bukovina ( Uniunea Prietenilor Artei ). In 1932 he appeared in the Astoria-Bar in Chisinau as the painter of the first Cubist wall frescoes in Romania and also took part in the exhibition of Moldovan painters in Jassy and in the Bucovina Autumn Salon. In 1933 he took part in exhibitions of Moldovan artists in Jassy and gave his first own exhibition in Chisinau. In 1934 he set a national record by painting 118 hours uninterrupted on the sets for Franz Lehár's operetta "The Land of Smiles" at the Banat Theater in Timisoara .

In 1935 his first exhibition "on chairs" took place at the headquarters of the Romanian Poet Society in Bucharest; In 1936, the General Director of the Brussels Art Museums, Leo van Puyvelde, bought a painting by Löwendal for the Museum of Modern Art in Brussels. In 1936 he showed his own comprehensive exhibition (with 141 exhibits) in the Art Museum in Chernivtsi, accompanied by press reviews from Romania and Austria. In 1937 he had his own exhibition in the Bucharest House of Books. 1938 Foundation of the first Free Academy of Fine Arts and the first art school for Romanian children; 1938–1945 Löwendal paints the main or "royal icons" on the iconostasis of the Trei-Ierarhi Church in Jassy, ​​which enjoy the status of a cultural monument. 1936 to 1940 participation in the Romanian world exhibitions with the portraits “Farmer from Bukovina” and the famous “Madonna with Child”.

From 1942 to 1943 he was the technical director of the National Theater in Craiova .

In 1944 Romania was occupied by the Red Army and at the end of 1947 the People's Republic was proclaimed. Unlike many of his contemporaries, George Löwendal was allowed to continue his artistic activity, whereby his popular themes and the realistic style of his painting certainly played a role.

1945 founding member of the Romanian Association of Fine Artists and the Romanian Fund for Fine Artists as well as participation in the exhibition of Romanian artists in Venice, the Bucharest Autumn Salon and own exhibition in the Romanian Parliament. In 1946 he was the only Romanian painter to paint the mines directly in Indian ink with the help of a carbide lamp and Mihai Ralea (1896–1964, essayist, philosopher, diplomat, professor, member of the Romanian Academy) opened his own exhibition in Bucharest .

1949–1950 he worked as an artistic consultant at the Bucharest Institute for Metallurgy, where he created a series of works on industrial subjects. It is a time of severe Stalinism in Romania.

From 1947 to 1957 he worked in the education sector as a professor at the Architects' Association and at the Institute for Applied Arts “N. Grigorescu ”in Bucharest. 1947 to 1964 participation in numerous group exhibitions, creation of many pictures of locally painted farmers from Bukovina.

George Baron Löwendal died in Bucharest in 1964 at the age of 67.

Web links

• http://kulturraumrumaenien.blogspot.com/2007/10/bukowina-und-der-rumnische-bauer.html
• http://www.bucovine.com/en/pages/culture/lowendal.shtml
• http://www.mediafax.ro/comunicate/comunicat-de-presa-2302942