Corneliu Petrescu
A research biographical project about the lesser-known today Romanian doctor and fine artist (graphic artist and painter) Corneliu Petrescu (1924-2009). The book about Petrescu comments on the politics of art during the Cold War in Socialist Romania by engaging with art collecting during communism/the Cold War and the cross-regional, across the “Nylon Curtain” (Péteri 2004) connections between the West and the East. This book discusses several questions: What does it mean to be a socialist artist? How does one become a socialist artist? The relationship between the West and the East during the Cold War starting from a unique case study, that of a Romanian painter who was collected by an influential patron, an executive with the International Monetary Fund, Geoffrey Tyler. Between 2021-2024 the research project was supported by a Frances Tyler grant through the Wilson Center in Washington D.C.
