Natalia DUMITRESCO

Natalia Dumitresco (1915-1997): Biography, Paintings and Original Lithographs

Natalia Dumitresco (Romanian spelling Dumitrescu) was born in Bucharest on 20 December 1915 and died at Chars, in the French Vexin, on 3 July 1997. A Romanian-born abstract painter who settled in Paris in 1947 and took French nationality in 1965, she belongs to the post-war generation of the School of Paris. Winner of the Prix Kandinsky in 1955, shown by the Galerie Arnaud and abroad in Brussels, Cologne and New York, she is also remembered, with her husband Alexandre Istrati, as the neighbour and later the heir of Constantin Brancusi. Her output is chiefly painted; her original lithographs are few and seldom seen.

Le Coin des Arts currently offers a single unique work by Natalia Dumitresco: Fête du 7 juin, an oil on canvas of roughly 41 × 33 cm, datable to around 1960, signed at lower centre and titled on the reverse. Like everything we show, it was chosen for its quality, condition and coherence within the artist’s work. Her original prints join the stock whenever good impressions appear; simply “follow the artist” on this page to be notified.

Early years in Romania

Dumitresco trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bucharest, studying from 1934 under the painter Francisc Șirato and graduating in 1939. That same year she married Alexandre Istrati (1915-1991), a painter from Dorohoi who had first read law before turning to art. Biographers stress that her early abstraction looked above all to Kandinsky. In 1947 a French government bursary allowed the couple to leave Romania for Paris, where they remained for the rest of their lives.

Next door to Brancusi: the Impasse Ronsin

In Paris the young couple met their compatriot Constantin Brancusi, who helped them find a studio beside his own in the Impasse Ronsin, in the 15th arrondissement. They worked alongside him until his death in 1957 and, as his heirs, devoted much of their later energy to his legacy: they were closely involved in the reconstruction of Brancusi’s studio at the Centre Georges Pompidou, opened in 1977, and co-wrote with the Swedish curator Pontus Hulten the monograph Brancusi, first published in Paris by Flammarion in 1986 and issued in Britain by Faber & Faber in 1988. Dumitresco and Istrati lie today with Brancusi in a single grave in the Montparnasse Cemetery.

A disciplined abstraction in 1950s Paris

Dumitresco quickly found her place in Parisian abstraction and at the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles. She showed at the Galerie Breteau and from 1950 at the Galerie Arnaud (with a solo exhibition there in 1954), took part in the Salon d’Octobre organised by the critic Charles Estienne in 1952 and 1953, and was championed by the review Cimaise. The Espace group awarded her a prize in 1952; the Prix Kandinsky followed in 1955. The art historian Agnès de La Beaumelle describes an austere, rigorously constructed painting of squares, grids, stripes, meshes, circles and lozenges, in which line and colour cannot be separated, and in certain respects compares it with Maria Helena Vieira da Silva. After several years in black and white she turned to luminous colour; her city views rely on serial repetition to convey rhythm.

Exhibitions, collections and the British connection

Solo exhibitions followed at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels in 1956 and the Kunstverein in Cologne in 1960; in New York, the Saidenberg Gallery handled her work in the late 1950s, and biographies also record a Carnegie award in Pittsburgh dated 1959. In 1963 the Kunsthalle Mannheim showed the couple together. A solo show at the Galerie Cavalero in Cannes followed in 1978. Later milestones include catalogues for the Galerie Raymonde Cazenave (1974), Artcurial (1985) and a joint exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris (16 September to 16 October 1987). She also made painted terracotta and resin sculptures. Her British links run chiefly through print: her 1953 lithograph appeared in the same Paris portfolio as plates by the British abstract painters Roger Hilton and Stephen Gilbert (see below), and a complete copy of that portfolio was sold by Phillips in London in December 2013 for £3,125. Her canvases also pass through the London trade: a small Composition of about 1958, oil on canvas, from a private collection in London, has been offered by the London dealer Whitford Fine Art. In France her paintings are held by the Musée d’Arts de Nantes, the Musée Picasso, Antibes and the Musée Rolin, Autun; in the United States by the Harvard Art Museums and the Brooklyn Museum.

The printed work: a handful of lithographs

Dumitresco was first and foremost a painter, and her printmaking is limited. The key sheet is her lithograph of 1953 for the portfolio Douze lithographies, published by the Paris lithographer Jean Pons (1913-2005), with a text by the critic R. V. Gindertael. Its twelve contributors included Serge Poliakoff, Alexandre Istrati, Constant, Roger Hilton and Stephen Gilbert. The edition comprised 100 numbered copies plus lettered artist’s copies, on Rives wove paper, each sheet signed and numbered in pencil. The portfolio is in the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Because the sheets were sold both as complete portfolios and individually, single plates by Dumitresco do reach the market on their own, sometimes framed. Later pencil-signed lithographs surface occasionally. To our knowledge no catalogue raisonné of her prints has been published, so a reliable description gives year, publisher, printer and edition rather than a catalogue number.

Collecting Natalia Dumitresco: a buyer’s guide

Unique works first. Most of the market consists of oils on canvas, often small, and works on paper. Check the signature (for instance “N. Dumitresco”), any title and date on the reverse, and whether the handling fits the stated period.

Provenance matters. With no published catalogue raisonné, a gallery label (Arnaud, Saidenberg, Cazenave), an exhibition catalogue reference or a documented collection carries real weight.

Edition and signature. For a lithograph, look for the pencil signature and the numbering (“27/100”, say, for the 1953 portfolio sheet).

Paper and condition. Rives paper may tone or show foxing; inspect the margins, light-staining and traces of old hinges.

Posters are not prints. The poster for “École de Paris 1962” at the Galerie Charpentier, printed by Mourlot, bears a signature printed in the stone. It is an attractive poster, not a signed and numbered original print.

Mind the namesake. Do not confuse her with Georges Dumitresco (1922-2008), a Romanian-Swiss doctor and painter. See also our pages on authenticity and framing.

The gallery selects Dumitresco’s works for quality and condition. Related artists with pages on our site include Serge Poliakoff, Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, Sonia Delaunay, Geneviève Claisse and Serge Charchoune; see also the School of Paris and Lyrical Abstraction, our modern paintings and our engravings and lithographs.

Sources and further reading

Agnès de La Beaumelle, ‘Natalia Dumitresco’, Dictionnaire universel des créatrices, Éditions des femmes, 2013 · Pontus Hulten, Natalia Dumitresco, Alexandre Istrati, Brancusi, Faber & Faber, London, 1988 (French edition Flammarion, 1986) · Pontus Hulten, Natalia Dumitresco, Alexandre Istrati, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, 1987 · AWARE – Natalia Dumitresco · Phillips London – Douze lithographies, 2013 · Stedelijk Museum – Douze lithographies · Harvard Art Museums – Composition No. 28