Ion Irimescu was an esteemed Romanian artist, representative of 20th-century modern Romanian sculpture, and member of the Romanian Academy. He studied sculpture at the National School of Fine Arts in Bucharest under the guidance of well-known artists Dimitrie Paciurea and Oscar Han, later continuing his studies on a scholarship in Paris. 

Intertwining between classical motifs and modern sculptural forms, Irimescu’s works – cast in diverse materials such as bronze, marble, wood, gypsum, or ceramics – tackle the themes of motherhood, beauty and truth as philosophical categories, history, mythology, religion, and music. In works such as Maternity, the artist’s distinctive style is visible in an unique approach to human bodily shapes through distortion, fragmentation, and elongation, constructing alluring choreographies of the corporeal. 

Irimescu was exhibited internationally throughout his life in Moscow, Bern, Rome, Berlin, Stockholm, and Istanbul, to name a few. In 1956, he exhibited 15 of his works at the Venice Biennale as part of the Romanian Pavilion and in 1961 he exhibited at the Rodin Museum in Paris. 

Later in life, he donated over 1000 artworks including drawings and sculptures to his hometown of Fălticeni, where a public museum dedicated to the artist was opened in 1975.