The universe of Zambaccian

We invite you to walk together in the universe of Zambaccian, the art collector who loved beauty so much that he left us a museum with a unique value.

We are in the middle of winter, but the outside temperatures are not too low, so we started walking from the Aviatorilor subway station to the Zambaccian Museum. I took the opportunity to discover another corner of Bucharest where tourists passionate about architecture with inter-war perfume have the opportunity to see real jewelry. We started on the street “Zambaccian Museum”.

The row of houses, which cover both sides of the alley, forms a true open-air museum. Whether we choose to walk in winter, spring, summer or autumn through this area of ​​Bucharest, we can enjoy, every season, the beauty of the villas built in different architectural styles.

Our target was the Zambaccian Museum, so on a mild winter day, just after 10:00 a.m., we passed the threshold of this place where we were given the chance to meet some of the greatest artists.

The museum building has a superb interior, in which the precious wood blends perfectly with the uniqueness of the exhibits, giving birth to a universe that only Zambaccian could create. On the ground floor you can see Ștefan Luchian, Camil Ressu or Oscar Han. The stairs and the floor are perfect hosts for other precious artists, such as Nicolae Tonitza, Theodor Pallady, Nicolae Grigorescu and Gheorghe Petrașcu. I gave only a few names, because in this museum are displayed impressive works signed by other masters: Cézanne, Picasso, Matisse, Bonnard, Utrillo, Marquet. They are unique works in Romania.

And because, every time we visited a museum, we presented some of the exhibits that impressed us, and in the case of Zambaccian we will do the same.

Our presentation, structured with the help of experts from the Zambaccian Museum, does not claim to be a top, but it is just an exposition of some of the works you can admire.

Andreescu, an excellent landscape painter

We will start the presentation with one of the paintings of Ion Andreescu, the Romanian artist whose destiny was suddenly broken, at the age of 32, because of tuberculosis.

At the Zambaccian Museum you have the opportunity to admire the work “Winter”. The painting highlights the artist’s personality very well. Andreescu is one of the important names of the Romanian painting from the end of the 19th century. “A landscape designer par excellence, Andreescu arrives at Barbizon, where he paints en plein air with French painters, but also with his compatriot, Nicolae Grigorescu. The latter immortalizes the meeting between the two through the portrait he makes to his young colleague who went to work in the forest on the outskirts of Paris. Andreescu excelled as a landscape painter, training largely as a self-taught artist. Of the landscapes in the Zambaccian collection, the one with the hybrid subject has a special significance. Purchased in 1927, the collector tells in his memories that he paid for this work the amount of 100,000 lei, the equivalent of an apartment at that time,” explains our host.

Dărăscu, the painter who feels the attraction and spell of the sea

“Tatar Graveyard in Balchik“, a work signed by Nicolae Dărăscu, is the second exhibit we bring to your attention.

Zambaccian loved all the artists we see today displayed in the museum that bears his name. About Dărăscu he said he feels the attraction and spell of the sea, not only as an artist, but also as a navigator.

The painting I chose depicts the story of the little paradise on the seashore, Balchik, one of the great chapters of interwar art.

Balchik, also known as the “Silver Coast”, due to the limestone shore that strongly reflects the light, is a place that many painters loved and presented in their works. The Romanian artists were attracted by the exoticism of this place.

“The little corner of the East, suggested by the minaret, which was just sketched and by the imposing oriental presence of the characters in the foreground, was a real magnet for the interwar artists. They particularly appreciated the physiognomy specific to the Tatars, but also the vestments that offered a special monumentality to those who wore them,” emphasizes our guide, referring to the painting made by Nicolae Dărăscu.

Work from the impressionist period of the painter Nicolae Grigorescu

Nicolae Grigorescu does not have to miss this presentation. The painting “Peasant woman lying on the grass” presents the central character in a moment of reverie in the grass only suggested by the artist by color. “The expressive, short line, color that directly forms the volumes without giving importance to the construction places this painting in the period of impressionistic creation. Grigorescu captures the passing moment by a quick sketch of the character that blends into the landscape just suggested”.

Another representative work for Grigorescu is “Farm at Barbizon”, an oil on canvas glued to the wood. While admiring the painting, one of the museum’s specialists tells us that, in 1862, during the Parisian studies, Grigorescu participated in the famous “tree contest”. The theme of this contest was a historical scene in a landscape. “In order to document himself, the painter studies the secular trees near Paris, in the Fontainebleau forest. From this moment the entire decade is dedicated to the study of nature, and from this moment Barbizon transforms, for the young Romanian artist, from a simple village into a true colony of painters. In the Zambaccian collection, the work “Farm at Barbizon” evokes precisely the atmosphere of this village in which Grigorescu knows the deepest change in the style of painting, abandoning the painting of academic type learned in Paris to finally arrive at the impressionist approach. This landscape is precisely the moment of passage in the artist’s career. The visitor can also admire in the Zambaccian collection another work from the same period, “Guardian of Chailly”.

“Lăutul”, the monumental creation of Stefan Luchian

The museum also houses one of the last monumental works from the creation of the painter Ștefan Luchian. It’s about “Lăutul”, an oil on canvas. The painting arrived in the Zambaccian collection after the death of another great art lover: Alexandru Bogdan-Pitești. “Although the subject belongs to the daily life, being essentially a genre scene, “Lăutul” was admired for its decorative appearance by the French painter Marquet, noting a compositional kinship with Gauguin. The topic is related to the Cocea family, those who care for the artist in the last period of life. Of the family members, Laura Cocea, named Lorica is probably the artist’s favorite model. Her portrait can be admired in the Zambaccian Museum along with “Stairs on flowers” or “White roses””, says the museographer.

Still life and nude from Pallady’s creation

In the case of the painter Theodor Pallady, the still life is a ubiquitous theme in his creation, and in the “The artist’s hat and umbrella”, an oil on canvas glued to the cardboard, we can admire this subject.

“Still life is represented as such or it can be part of an interior scene, being the only subject that gives it complete freedom of choice. His contemporaries said that the settlement of a still life painting could take days in a row, being transposed on canvas in a few sessions, sometimes even in a few hours. The placement of the objects of a still life painting was an occasion for reflection for the artist, an opportunity to carefully observe the smallest details of each chosen object. By the static nature we can reconstruct almost biographically the environment in which the artist created and lived. Personal objects become the subject of plastic meditation, so we recognize in some still life paintings the gloves or umbrella of the artist, but also the glasses, books or French newspapers, flowers or pipe that the artist used only as an object in his still life paintings,” points out one of the experts who he accompanies us.

Another common subject in the painter’s creation from the interwar period is the nude, and in the Zambaccian collection we can admire “Two nudes near the fireplace”. “The nude appears from the second decade, but the next decade is probably the peak. Intimate presence, the female nude offers a modern image on a theme loved by artists, the workshop. The composition with several nudes leads us with the imagination in the past, evoking a palace, a space of eroticism for the modern artist who looks to the past of art. The nude is always associated with Pallady with the intimacy of the interior, intimacy that is created by the objects that surround the model sitting in an open position, of reverie”, emphasize the experts.

Camil Ressu, the teacher painter

One of the leading artists of the twentieth century, Camil Ressu distinguished himself at the time not only as a painter, but also as a good teacher, being one of the teachers of the Bucharest Academy of Arts and rector until 1941. “The concern for the social environment appears in his opera immediately after returning to the country after completing his studies in Munich and then Paris. The portrait is a genre in which Ressu excelled as we can see in the Zambaccian collection. The most remarkable portrait is the one that presents Luchian “suffering in an armchair upholstered in red velvet, with the body stiffened by a lethal disease”, as the artist remembers. In the same collection we can see the portrait of Zambaccian’s father, as well as the Portrait of the little girl. This girl, represented from behind, turns the head towards the viewer in a spontaneous and fresh attitude. The whole composition is dominated by the dark blue dress with white dots, highlighted by the contrast with the simple, but bright walls of the room in which it is portrayed,” shows our host.

Brâncuși from the Zambaccian collection

One of the bronze cast versions of the work “Head of a Child”, made by Constantin Brâncuși, is also in the Zambaccian collection, being a rather small work, a work suited to the exhibition inside. Our hosts advise us, in order to form an overview of the subject, to compare the mentioned work with those exhibited in the Romanian Modern Art Gallery. “The physiognomy of the child is a subject that has worried Brâncuși especially in the first period of creation, the one of learning. These portraits made either in gypsum or in patinated bronze, sometimes in several variants, show us the special care that the artist gives to the physiognomic details”.

Portrait of K.H. Zambaccian

And we cannot conclude this presentation without evoking the one who gave us the chance to admire so many masterpieces. It is about K.H. Zambaccian, the art collector who continues to make history because of his passion for everything that is beautiful. “The passion for painting is the basis of a quarter-century friendship between Gheorghe Petrașcu and K. Zambaccian. The portrait of the collector shows us a man in power, dressed in the fashion of time, in a suit with a tie, and on the head with a hat. The portrait is signed and dated, 1927. We note the unmistakable style of the painter, the color placed on the canvas in a thick layer, dominated by dark tones and the contrast between dark and open that highlights the collector’s portrait,” says the host of the Zambaccian Museum.

Author: Ștefania Enache

Photo: Corina Gheorghe