The Bucharest Municipality Museum opens two new rooms of the Suțu Palace to the public – organizing a memento dedicated to the Pinacotheque of Bucharest.
Founded in 1933 through the efforts of certain cultural personalities of the time, as an essential cultural institution, the Pinacotheque was first housed by Admiral Vasile Urseanu’s Palace. Today it features about 5500 Romanian and foreign paintings, sculptures and engravings. Unfortunately, due to various historical conjunctures, the Pinacotheque has become virtually inaccessible to the inhabitants of the Capital, for a quarter of a century. During the communist regime it was dispossessed of numerous precious items. After 1990 the remaining collection was only exhibited temporarily and fragmentarily, in various locations – others than the headquarters of the Municipality Museum.
In spite of its minimal selection, the present exhibition aims to synthesise a representative image of the Pinacotheque, the formation of which was made possible thanks to contributions from both private and State collections. Two private collections were donated to the Municipality – that of magistrate Ioan I. Movilă and that of sculptor Filip Marin, These were decisive for the birth of the Pinacotheque. Works of art from these collections are featured in the present exhibition, along with some works representative of modern and contemporary Romanian artists, divided in four sections: portraits, works of still life, genre scenes and landscapes. Therefore the public will be able to enjoy universal works of art as well as works signed by Romanian artists, such as Gheorghe Tattarescu, Mişu Popp, Nicolae Grigorescu, Sava Henţia, Ion Andreescu, G.D.Mirea, Theodor Pallady, Marius Bunescu, Nicolae Dărăscu, Nicolae Tonitza, Francisc Şirato, Coca Meţianu, Mina Byck Wepper, Rodica Maniu etc. Aside from the paintings, the few featured sculptures represent a bridge between the exhibition and present times, featuring sculptures by Filip Marin, Dimitrie Paciurea, Ion Jalea, Miliţa Petraşcu, Ion Irimescu, Boris Caragea, Gheorghe Anghel, Constantin Lucaci and Ovidiu Maitec.
We hope that this foray in one of the edifying episodes of modern Bucharest will allow visitors to form a balanced opinion on an important and ambitious Romanian inter-war project.