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Maria Bănică shaped her artistic identity within the milieu of the Bucharest School of Fine Arts, where she studied under Jean Al. Steriadi and Camil Ressu, two central figures of Romanian interwar modernism. Her work centres on the urban landscape, a subject that enabled her to explore the visual rhythm of modern Bucharest through a post-Impressionist sensibility. The artist’s paintings combine chromatic vitality with a measured sense of structure, reflecting the influence of French luminism filtered through local realities. Although little is known of her exhibition record, Bănică’s practice aligns with that of the women painters active during the interwar decades, who negotiated visibility in a predominantly male environment. Her contribution intersects with broader tendencies in Romanian modernity, in which urban motifs became vehicles for articulating modern experience and feminine authorship entered the national pictorial discourse. Through a discreet yet coherent body of work, Maria Bănică contributes nuance to the understanding of Romanian post-Impressionism, anchoring its decorative refinement in the lived fabric of the modern city.
