Born in 1880, in Bucharest, Jean Al. Steriadi enrolled at the Fine Arts School in 1897 and graduated in 1901. A tallented and hard working artist, he impressed his teacher enough to win a scholarship, which allowed his to pursue his training at the Akademie der Bildenden Kunsten in Munich, where he would stay until 1903. He studied under Wilhelm von Diez and Gabriel von Hacks at the german academy, perfecting his style and learning more about art history, but he also studied with Heinrich Wolff and Ernst Neumann, as he sensed he needed much more. Already a mature and certified artist, Steriadi moved to Paris, where he remained for three years, until 1906.
In this time frame he studied at the Academie Julian, under Jean-Paul Laurens and particularly visited the French museums and art galleries. His first exhibition was in 1903, when he presented a few paintings at the "Tinerimea Artistica" show in Bucharest, a group exhibition with some success. His first ever solo exhibition was hosted at the Ateneul Roman in 1906, and it was a surprising success, as Steriadi was considered by collectors and critics a new, fresh and original voice, an artist who could not longer be ignored.
Afternoon in Balchik
He would later become the president of the Tinerimea Artistica Society, later the director of the Kalinderu Museum. He was also a teacher at the Fine Arts School in Bucharest, where he taught drawing and painting, and eventually was elected a member of the Romanian Academy.
He is best remembered for his litography experiments and the vast gallery of portraits that he produced over the course of his lengthy career. Many of these portraits were highly popular in his lifetime and even later, as they represented some famous political and cultural names in Romanian history, such as : Alexandru Macedonski, Alexandru Vlahuta, Stefan Luchian, Gheorghe Bratianu, Zambaccian. As most of these were important and respected, the style and manner in which the artist chose to represent them became in fashion and brought him a lot of popularity. He also produced several portraits of friends or members of his family, marked by a special sensibility.
Steriadi also made several series of litographies, inspired by the hars and touching realities he discovered in the Jewish districts of Bucharest, in a very naturalist style, marked by the German influences, most of the models being old, poor Jews, small merchants, even children. He also made a great number of drawings and sketches, portraits, landscapes, still lifes and several self-portraits. The later theme interested him to a high degree, so much that the last work he was working on when he died, in 1956, was a self-portrait.
2008-06-02
