145. Poppies and Wild Flowers [1948]

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145. Poppies and Wild Flowers [1948]

Jean Cheller

1911, Bucureşti - 1952, Bucureşti

Estimate:

EUR 3.000 - 5.000

Sold

EUR 3.000

References

CRUCERU, Florica, POSTOLACHE, Dana, DARIDA, Ioan, "Dicționarul artiștilor din spațiul românesc 1700-1920" ("Dictionary of Romanian Artists 1700-1920"), vol. I, A-L, ACS Publishing House, Bucharest, 2019.

oil on cardboard, 32.5 x 46 cm, 32,5 Ã 46 cm, signed and dated bottom right, in black, "Jean Cheller, (1)948"

A descendant of an Austrian German family, Jean Cheller took this name as a result of his marginalization, with the establishment of the communist regime. It gradually and indirectly removed him from Romania’s public cultural life. We do not have much data on the training of the artist, on the study trips made or even on his participation in exhibitions. The existing information was collected from the artist's family and friends, and it is naturally marked by their subjectivity. We do, however, know that Jean Cheller gave up his studies at the Academy of Art (most likely due to material shortcomings), but that he had Gheorghe Petrașcu and Alexandru Ciucurencu as teachers. He is said to have admired the work of the former and to have become a good friend of the latter. He also had a close friendship with the painter Corneliu Baba, who greatly esteemed Cheller and who expressed his regret that the ostracized artist died too soon, not having enough time to reveal his true potential. In his preserved works, we find clues of the artist’s journeys through France, Italy, Egypt, or Balchik. We encounter panoramas of the Bucharest space, with its streets, corners and neighbourhoods, but also still lifes with flowers, made in oil or watercolour. Windflowers, poppies, or wild flowers compose genuine eulogies dedicated to the plant motif captured in an extremely vivid and telling colour, with white, red or yellow declinations, and sometimes even with pink or blue inserts. The ceramic vessels complete the setting and atmosphere proposed by the artist, which invokes the return to origins and simplicity, both through the shapes, and through the chosen colours. (D.C.)

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