Marcel Chirnoaga (1930 - 2008) was one of the most important contemporary Romanian artists, world-renowned for his original and profound style, although he was mostly a self-taught artist.
Born on August 17th 1930 in Busteni, Romania, in the beginning he regarded drawing and art simply as a past time and marginal hobby, and actually was a graduate of the Physics and Mathematics Faculty, in 1952. Although his interest seemed to be drawn towards numbers and abstractions, he continued drawing in his spare time, learning as he went, focusing on building and elegant, complicated and instantly recognisable style. A style which would eventually make him one of the most important graphical artists of 20th century Romania.
Practically abandoning a future career in mathematics and the likes, Marcel Chirnoaga became a member of the UAP (Artist's Union) of Romania in 1953 and presented his first ever personal exhibition just two years later, in 1955, with surprising success for someone who did not have a formal education in the field and used a strikingly original drawing style. For the beginning was just as the rest of his artistic life, for Chirnoaga preffered to focus mainly on drawings and prints, genres that he took farther than everybody else. His choice of subjects - mythological themes, fairytales, legends, animals, fantastic beings, literature - often led to criticism from those who wanted a more "realistic" approach, but Marcel Chirnoaga continued to work this way and enjoyed his success.
After that first solo exhibition he would have several others, in Romania and abroad, personal or group shows, each time being regarded as a deeply original and profound artist. His first show abroad was in 1969 in Stuttgart, Germany, and offered foreign collectors and art lovers to discover the works of an original and strong young draftsman. Over the next decades, his works could be enjoyed in exhibitions mounted in Italy, Germany, USA, France, Belgium, Sweden, China. Several of his works were bought by foreign collectors and museums, and can now be found in private collection and galleries from all over the world. Because of the value of his works, Marcel Chirnoaga also received several national and international prizes and distinctions over time, but for his admirers it seems that he never received quite enough.
Most of his large body of work - he created over 3000 compositions - are in the field of graphical arts and engravings, and nowadays even the modest sketches and drawings have impressive prices for a Romanian artist. He preffered to created series of works, with a general theme, such as "Unavoidable Monsters", "Dante's Inferno", "Don Quijote", "Apocalypse", "The Ten Comandments" and many others, each highly successful and popular. He also produced a small number of sculptures, graphics for postal stamps and mural paintings.
Unfortunatelly, the artist recently passed away, due to an older lung disease, at 77 years old.
2008-04-25
