Ion Irimescu

Ion Irimescu (27 February 1903 – 28 October 2005) was a Romanian sculptor and sketcher. From 1992, he was an honorary member of the Romanian Academy. In 2001 he was awarded the Prize of Excellence for Romanian Culture. He is often referred to as the "patriarch of Romanian art and sculpture".

Biography He was born in Fălticeni, the son of Petre Irimescu and Maria Cazaban, and had two brothers: Alexandru and Verona. After the graduating from Primary School No. 1 in Fălticeni in 1915, In 1933 he married Eugenia Augustina Melidon, a teacher. He became an Arts teacher at the Pașcani Secondary School (1933). In 1936, he was named Arts teacher at the C.F.R. Aurel Vlaicu College, Bucharest until 1939, when he became Arts and Calligraphy teacher at Radu Greceanu Boys College from Slatina. In 1975, he donated an impressive number of sculptures and drawings to the Fălticeni Museum, with which it created the "Ion Irimescu" Collection. He was named as the president Romanian Plastic Artists' Union in 1978, where he activated until 1989.

On 27 February 2003, the Romanian Academy celebrated him on the occasion of his 100th birthday.

At the end of his life he retreated to Fălticeni, where he took care of the museum that contained half of his works. Irimescu donated his works (approximately 300 sculptures and 1,000 drawings) and, as a result, it was created the biggest permanent collection of an author from Romania. One of his works, the statue of Dimitrie Cantemir, was at Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, between the statues of Dante and Shakespeare.

Ion Irimescu said that, during one meeting with Nicolae Ceaușescu, he expressed his intention to sculpt a life-size bronze statue of Mihail Sadoveanu, but he did't have enough material to finish his work. To his astonishment, Ceaușescu sent him as a gift a statue of Joseph Stalin. Under these circumstances, the statue of Stalin shaped by Dumitru Demu was transformed in the statue of Sadoveanu, designed carefully by Irimescu.

On 28 October 2005, Irimescu died and was buried in Oprișeni Cemetery.

Footnotes