Constantin Bacalu (Roman, Romania)

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Constantin Bacalu was born in 1884 in Roman, Neamț County, and died in 1975 in Bucharest. He received his initial training at the Academy of Fine Arts in Iași, graduating in 1908, and subsequently pursued advanced studies in Munich. Study trips to France and Belgium broadened his artistic formation, placing him in dialogue with the European tendencies of the early twentieth century. Between 1922 and 1947, he was a regular exhibitor at the Bucharest Official Salon, while also holding solo shows in Roman, Iași, Bacău, Cluj, Cernăuți, Chișinău, Timișoara, and Craiova, with his final exhibition organised in Bucharest. His production combined easel painting and graphic works with mural commissions, most notably the frescoes executed at the church of Saint George in Constanța and at the church in Scorțeni, Bacău County, created in collaboration with Nicolae Tonitza. Bacalu’s career illustrates the trajectory of a provincial artist integrated into national circuits of exhibition and patronage, navigating both the practice of landscape painting and the demands of monumental religious decoration. His contribution remains significant for understanding the broader spectrum of Romanian interwar painting, situated between academic tradition and modernist adaptation.