Radulescu Campigli Magdalena (1902-1983) Romania: "the Magician" Oil On Stone Pebble

Radulescu Campigli Magdalena (1902-1983) Romania: "the Magician" Oil On stone pebble; signed on the back, 15 x 11 x 5 cm. Magdalena Radulescu was born in 1902 in Rimnicu Vâlcea in Romania. She studied art in Munich, for 2 years with Angerer, as well as in Paris, at the Grande Chaumière, with Prinet and Boutet de Montvel. It was there that she met Massimo Campigli, her future husband. His first exhibitions took place in 1929 and 1933 at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris. With Campigli she rubbed shoulders in Montparnasse with the great artists of the 20th century such as Brancusi and Giacometti. Like these giants, she developed her own repertoire of highly original and personal forms. Like other of her unclassifiable contemporaries, Chagall, Klee and Miro, she drew her inspiration from her childhood. Constantza, where she grew up, forever gives it a Byzantine, oriental tone... Her paintings often refer to Romanian culture but with a hieratic treatment which excludes any folkloric dimension. The subject, the initial pretext, fades through a nostalgic distancing then submits when the shape, color and rhythm take over the signifier of the work. It is then that Magdalena's magic is revealed, offering us, as with Frida Kahlo, gateways to a timeless universe where the figure is nothing more than a sign. At the heights of the soul of his nation, the mystical and the absurd distort the conventional image of reality. The rejection of a social condition dictated by trivial laws pushes her towards the sacralization of the plastic gesture. From this comes the proximity with symbolism and surrealism. The quest for primitivist writing is part of a centuries-old popular tradition which finds its roots in the beliefs and superstitions of an agrarian society. It is therefore appropriate to note in the artist's iconography, the repeated use of the cross of Saint Andrew who is none other than the founder of the Romanian Orthodox church, a cross still present in many houses where the inhabitants practice religion again. The Scythian heritage gave him, among other things, a taste for depicting horses. The seriousness of his portraits further demonstrates the ambition of the artist's project. The figure comes alive with intentions and offers us an intimate dialogue. The artist describes the nights painting by the light of twelve candles, in the castle of Count Coconato, where the shadows compete with the intuition of unreal presences. It is the dreamlike writing of childhood mastered by the depth of his spiritual reflection which assigns to his work the rank which deserves it. His figurative pictorial style is close to expressionism through the power of its colors, the message of his poetic, humanist work. The originality of his creation gives him a major rank among his contemporaries. The place that awaits him in the history of Romanian art is not yet specified. Her geographically fragmented production has not, for the moment, made it possible to define the importance of her work. Petra Giacomelli describes to us the last days of Magdalena Radulescu living on the edge of a fantastic world that she joins with brush in hand , symbolic key to the door to eternity. She died in Paris on March 3, 1983. Her works are kept in several museums including Constanta and Bucharest. http://magdalena-radulescu.com/