Ligia Macovei

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Ligia Macovei was a Romanian painter and graphic artist. She completed her studies at the Belle Arte School in Bucharest under the guidance of esteemed professors such as Cecilia Cuțescu-Storck and Jean Alexandru Steriadi. Macovei’s nonfigurative paintings immerse the viewer in sensitive fluxes of bold and contrasting colors that come together eerily. These expressionist flows evoke a modernist subjectivity, constituted at the electrifying border between the natural and the artificial. Macovei is also known for her portraiture which completes the otherworldly qualities of her painterly universe. Her depictions of human subjects transpose certain characteristics of her illustration work, such as the employment of caricature or more clearly defined lines and contours. Throughout her career, Macovei exhibited her works internationally, for instance at the Venice Biennale in 1956 or at Künstlerhaus Wien in 1965. The artist is equally recognized critically for her illustrations of poetry books by Mihai Eminescu and Tudor Arghezi. Moreover, Macovei and her husband were avid collectors themselves. The couple’s villa, which includes Macovei’s studio and a remarkable survey of Romanian modern art, have been kindly donated to the Bucharest Municipal Museum.