Known in particular for literature and fine arts, the Romanian avant-garde is also represented by some outstanding names in the field of photography.
Known in particular for literature and fine arts, the Romanian avant-garde is also represented by some outstanding names in the field of photography. One such example is Aurel Bauh, who is better known in western Europe and the US than in his home country Romania. A Romanian-born Jew, he studied in Berlin in the 1920s with the Ukrainian sculptor Alexander Archipenko and then in Paris with Fernard Leger, one of the first French painters to exhibit cubist paintings. The work of Aurel Bauh focused less on documentary photography and more so on art photography. He moved to Bucharest towards the end of the 1930s, where he lived until 1960. Academy member Emanuel Badescu tells us more about the work of Aurel Bauh created in Romania:
"Aurel Bauh comes from Oltenia, in southern Romania. He was born in Craiova in 1900. We know little of his early school years, but we do have records about his time in Paris while he was in his early 20s. He was in close contact with the Romanian artists who lived and worked in the French capital at a time when the avant-garde movement was flourishing. He was familiar with the exhibitions of the artists who represented this artistic movement, including photographers like Man Ray. Towards the end of Carol II's rule, Aurel Bauh returned to Romania, moving to Bucharest. He had one studio on Popa Rusu Street and another on the Victory Boulevard, called Studio 41."
This studio became a meeting place and inspiration for several avant-garde artists, such as Sasa Pana, Jules Perahim, Harry Brauner, and Geo Bogza. In 1938, Bauh had his firs exhibition of 'photo paintings', titled "Same Age as Brassai and Man Ray". In the 1950s, when the terrible communist regime in Romania was just beginning, Aurel Bauh managed to publish a surprising album with photos. It is now in the archives of the Romanian Academy Library, and Emanuel Badescu described it for us:
"Remarkably, in 1957 he gathered together all his works about Bucharest, and created a singularly beautiful album, because it is the only one, or one of the few albums about Bucharest that has as its theme the beauty of the city. It is no wonder that the album has a short but superb foreword written by another pariah of early communism in Romania, Tudor Arghezi. These two great artists joined hands in this album entitled 'Bucharest', an album, which, aside from the poetry of the images, has another feature, which you could not find even in the work of Christian photographers of the time. In its pages we find a great number of photos depicting worshippers entering Christian Orthodox churches. Perusing the album, we easily notice that Aurel Bauh had a vast fine art experience. It seems he appreciated Impressionist painters, especially Monet. In this album there are several photos that point to the French master. He wanted to capture an aspect that his peers did not: the poetry of the city, its architectural styles - art nouveau and art deco - the monumentality of buildings or sculpture ensembles such as Carol Park, images from Cismigiu Park, and the Dambovita canal. They all have a special poetry and recall Impressionist painters."
In 1960, Aurel Bauh managed to emigrate to Paris, where he died in 1964. His photos, highly valued today, can be found in private collections, in France and elsewhere. You can even find his work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 2011, one of the exhibitions at the Les Promenades Photographiques Festival in Vendome was dedicated to his work.
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