86. Man with Spoon [1975]

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86. Man with Spoon [1975]

Corneliu Baba

1906, Craiova - 1997, Bucureşti

Estimate:

EUR 1.500 - 2.500

Sold

EUR 6.500

References

BABA, Corneliu, "Confessions and Journals", volume II: 1965 - 1977, Edition edited by Maria Muscalu Albani, National Museum of Art of Romania, Bucharest, 2020.

ceracolor și acuarelă pe hârtie, 29.5 x 26.7 cm, signed and dated top right, in pen, "Baba (19)75"

PROVENANCE

the collection of Prof. Costin Murgescu, corresponding member of the Academy, and filmmaker Ecaterina Oproiu.

One of the mentions regarding the subject of this work appears in Corneliu Baba's diary on January 17, 1972, when the artist confesses that one of the three works he was preparing for an exhibition, "Genre Scene", was transformed into "The Man with the Spoon". Corneliu Baba's diaries are a real treasure for knowing and deeply understanding his plastic works. "The Man with the Spoon" will be described in detail in the same diary entry: "The character is seen frontally. The figure is simple, very dramatic, both hands are on the table, a yellow-orange table. The piece of bread on the table has a terrible color effect, as does the blue of the spoon. The coat, in undefined pink-gray, with iridescences of ocher. I then made a sketch in colored ink and the entire "golden warm" atmosphere did not displease me. At another time this work had blue as the dominant color, like Picasso's characters from the blue period." Given that the artist revisits this subject over the years, it will undergo stylistic and chromatic permutations, the current work being closer to those "characters of Picasso from the blue period" than the representation in warmer tones of "The Man with the Spoon" from 1972, version included today in the collection of the National Museum of Art in Bucharest. Another version is in the collection of the Timisoara Art Museum, and numerous interpretations and sketches have circulated over time in the art market. "The Man with the Spoon" will therefore become a recurring theme, almost obsessive in the work of Corneliu Baba. It is by far a dramatic portrait, a powerful and impressive work, in which the artist exercises influences taken from El Greco, Goya or Rembrandt. Serving as a tribute to expressionism, the work stands out with its faint strokes, which compress the image in its entirety. The long-sleeved shirt and the serious figure; the tightly held spoon and the empty plate, which the character approaches with all the strength of his arm; and lastly, the green spot that keeps the suggestion of the bottle, reside in a tragic pathos, imprinted in all the strokes that make up this work.

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