#tonitza

[mioritic]

Nicolae Tonitza (Romanian, 1886–1940)

Sketch of the view towards Str. Popa Soare 19, Bucharest, ca. 1925-30

MNAR

[intothekatabasis]

[mioritic]

The artists of the fifth Arta Română exhibition, Bucharest, April 1922.

From left to right, standing: M. H. Maxy, Marius Bunescu, Oscar Han, Traian Cornescu, Ștefan Dimitrescu, Ion Theodorescu-Sion, and Camil Ressu. Seated in front is Nicolae Tonitza.

[mioritic]

Nicolae Tonitza (Romanian, 1886–1940)

"Femeie cu copilaș în pat" ("Woman with a baby in bed"), undated sketch (ca. 1919-1920)

Biblioteca Academiei Române

[mioritic]

A (rather unbalanced, depressing, but nevertheless sweet?) letter from the artist Nicolae Tonitza (1886–1940) to Ștefan Ion "Afane" Teodoreanu (1921–2006), a budding artist — 12 years old at the time, and one of the twin sons of writers Ionel Teodoreanu and Ștefana Velisar Teodoreanu.

Friday, 4 January 1934 Dear Afane, I received your letter upon my return from Ploiești, where I went with Titi, Puiu, and Mica, for New Year's, to spend the beginning of the year with their cousins (of Coca Pană and Jacques Béreilh[-Liegaux]). To spend some time "as a family". (That's our tradition). If you knew what joy your lines have brought me, you would also be moved to tears. Not joy because you praise me in your plastic arts quasi-chronicle about the [School of] Fine Arts exhibition, — but because I feel that what I achieve sometimes in my art resonates deeply in your soul. How good it would have been, both for my art and for the animal in me, if I had found amongst my own the same spiritual echoes that I find in you. Until now I have lived in a permanent void. Your lines have greeted me at the height of depressions bordering on death. Ah! How much I want [to die]. Ever since I returned from the front. If I had been an egoist, I would have been nothing but a bucket of ashes today, cold and inoffensive. But why am I telling you all of this? To your soul, into which the garbage of life still has not penetrated, my words cannot have any meaning. You will understand them much later, when you are big and I am earth and flowers — and when the petty legends woven around my existence will have fallen apart — like everything that springs from offended laziness and cowardice. Thank you, once again, my dear Afane, for your warm and loving lines. I would have liked to write more — and more — but I have a thousand little things to be finalized, in the atelier — and to put in order (a lot of order) in the household. I kiss you sweetly on the forehead, surly* and silent painter** Tony P.S. So I don't forget — it's healthier to look ahead: kiss your daddy — Ionel — for me now, and wish him well (I think Monday is St. John's Day, no?) Kiss your grandma and mama on the hand. All the best to grandpa, papa, and to [your brother] Gogo.

*The original Romanian, "ursuzul", evokes a bear: big, sullen, unfriendly.

**Like a house or church painter (the latter of which he was early in his career), not someone in the fine arts.

[mioritic]

Nicolae Tonitza (Romanian, 1886–1940)

Double self portrait, not dated (interwar period)

Muzeul Național Brukenthal

[mioritic]

Nicolae Tonitza (Romanian, 1886–1940)

"Fetiță cu basma" ("Little girl with headscarf"), undated sketch

[mioritic]

Nicolae Tonitza (Romanian, 1886–1940)

"Țărani din Sâmbăta" ("Peasants from Sâmbăta"), undated sketch

Barbu Brezianu, N. N. Tonitza (Bucharest: Editura Meridiane, 1986)