Octav Grigorescu

Octav Grigorescu was a Romanian painter, graphic artist, book illustrator, fine arts professor at the Bucharest National University of Arts (at the time Institul de Arte Plastice "N. Grigorescu" ), an important figure in Romanian art.

He was the brother of Ion Grigorescu and the husband of the painter Georgeta Năpăruș.

Octav Grigorescu was born on May 22, 1933, to Anastase Grigorescu (b. 1905) and Maria (b. 1906, née Guşerescu), the second among four brothers and one sister.

His father, a chemical engineer, had weak eyesight due to an early accident when experimenting with chemicals as a boy.

This, together with the number of children of young age, prevented him from being drafted during the war.

The family story lets believe that Anastase met Maria when his brother was a law trainee in Octav Guserescu's office (her father).

This is where the boy's name borrowed the name.

In spite of initially opposing the marriage, the elder Octav went along with what appeared to be a true love story, and, ironically, the young family settled and raised all children in his house located on a picturesque, now slightly out of shape part of the old town, on Vasile Alecsandri street, still owned in part by the family.

Anastase Grigorescu's family hails from Bengesti-Ciocadia, Gorj, in the province of Oltenia, from a family of landowners who ran a mill on the Ciocadia river.

They rose to a degree a local prominence to build a small church in town and sending all children to the university.

Fortunately for them, the economic fate of the family had a downturn before and during the war, so they avoided the immediate bull's eye of the communist revolution, which waged a fierce war on the well-endowed peasantry and so called small bourgeoisie during the initial stages of the Soviet imposed rule.

Anastase's mother side was of Aromanian origin, having settled from south of the Danube in the province via Turnu Severin, and owning a property at Strehaia in the township of Corcova, Mehedinti county.

The father's side were local with possible roots over the Carpathians in Transylvania.

On the mother's side, Guserescu was from northern Bukovina, born in Todirești (județul Botoșani), in a family of free land-owning peasants (razesi) who boasted having been granted land by the legendary medieval king of Moldavia, Stephen the Great, after an ancestor earned it in battle.

In any case, later on, the artist remembered his grandfather as a dominating, boastful character, with a penchant for bad financial deals and infidelity toward his wife who was an artistic, delicate and inspiring character to the children.

Herself addicted to gambling, but very well read and educated, with a passion for romantic novels and a whiff of elegance, coming from a wealthier merchant family with mixed Greek ancestry, she was the favorite of the rest of the family who gradually set the older Octav Guserescu in a sort of domestic exile.

Her daughter, Maria, the painter's mother, was not in good terms with her own father.

The unconventional, cigar smoking grandfather exerted a "bad boy" attraction on the grandchildren during Octav's middle school years.

He let his grandson puff cigarettes a tad too early, a habit that the future painter unfortunately never quit and most likely contributed to his early death at 53.

During the short famine following the war and an exceptionally cold winter, the family burned some of the law school volumes, out of need but perhaps in an act of defiance as well.

The lawyer had died in 1945.

Octav, together with his brothers, attended what was a boy's only top school, starting with what was at that time the maternal school no. 18, followed in the same building by the "Titu Maiorescu" high school.

One has to remember that he was fourteen in 1947, a fateful moment for the country, when the king abdicated and the immediate years after the war were marked by severe political upheaval and economic shortages.

Yet he disclosed thinking that philosophy was his calling, perhaps due to the stimulating classes of his teachers.

All along, a natural interest in literature, especially poetry, was present, and he continued writing all his life, even though he never published his work during his lifetime.

The only published poetry volume is Lotofagii, a posthumous artist book printed in a font inspired by his distinctive, Da Vinci - like handwriting, edited by his brother Ion Grigorescu.

Entering the fine arts school in the class of Rudolf Schweitzer-Cumpăna at the Institute, following up with sculpture in Dimitrie Onofrei's class, he finally chooses to specialize in graphic arts with Vasile Kazar.

He graduated with a baccalaureate in 1951.

In some sense the school was a higher education institution, with an elite of very talented pupils with accomplished future careers; social position played a role, but the group was apparently mixed, with children belonging to the royal court intermingled with the middle class.

The communist revolution altered this mix, but did not destroy the outstanding quality of the school.

His literature teacher was an accomplished, even though traditionalist poet, with interest in art and who encouraged his students to pursue higher grounds.

Octav was talented in art, starting to draw endlessly by copying museum postcards, browsing black and white art and travel albums with monuments and renaissance sculptures, found in the house, borrowed from friends or from school.

Between 1955-1984 he travels extensively, both independently and with support for scholarly activity, for art shows and exhibitions, at the beginning primarily in Eastern Europe: Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, German Democratic Republic (1962, 1965, 1974); but later on to Italy, France, Austria (1968, 1969–70, 1977, 1978, 1980); and again U.S.S. R. (1972); Cuba, Spain (1979); Franta, United Kingdom, Greece (1983).

He graduates his M.A. (1958) with a diploma project depicting scenes from the lives of workers from the coal works in Maramures county, as required by the times.

He is happy to accept, right upon graduation, being a lecturer in the graphic arts section.

His solo debut is in 1959, entering the Artists' Guild (Uniunea Artistilor Plastici) in 1961; he even served at some point on the steering committee, and was a member until the end.

In 1965 he married hir former college fellow and painter Georgeta Năpăruș, and they had a son in 1967.

Later on he becomes a reader (conferentiar) and keeps his position till the end, in a distinguished career, many students, with a short interruption around 1968–1971.

It is in 1968 that he is representing Romania at the Venice Biennale for the first time (the second is in 1980), a turning point in his career.

He is noticed by critics and is invited to have a solo exhibition.