Nicolae Vermont

Nicolae Vermont (10 October 1866 – 14 June 1932) was a Romanian realist painter, graphic artist and muralist. He was noted for his wide range of subjects and his interest in social issues, and was an associate of the post-Impressionists Ștefan Luchian and , as well as a friend of the controversial art collector and political figure Alexandru Bogdan-Pitești.

Biography Vermont was born Isidor Grünberg to a Jewish family in Bacău. His father, Iosif Grünberg, was a professor. Isidor adopted his father's pseudonym "Vermont" (the name being a gallicization of Grünberg — literally, "green mountain") and, upon converting to the Romanian Orthodox Church, while studying with Theodor Aman at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bucharest (graduated 1886). Like the rest of Tinerimea Artistică, Vermont was heavily influenced by Grigorescu during his youth.

In 1896, Vermont, Luchian, Artachino, and Bogdan-Pitești, founded Salonul Independenților, the local version of the French Société des Artistes Indépendants. The movement which they attempted to create accommodated various tenets, and, while proclaiming a need for renewal in Romanian art, stressed the importance of earlier traditions. Such work was influenced by the Akademie der Bildenden Künste'''s genre painting. Two years after Salonul Independenţilor opened for the public, its initiators (together with Ioan Bacalbașa) founded Societatea Ileana, an association dedicated to promoting new styles in art. In 1906, during the 40th celebration of King Carol I's ascension to the Romanian throne, Vermont's paintings were exhibited in Bucharest alongside the works of Grigorescu, Verona, and Loghi (they won the admiration of , the future art collector, who declared himself "obsessed" with their image).

Many of his works are hosted by public collections such as the National Museum of Art, the Vasile Pârvan Museum in Bârlad, the Bucovina Art Museum in Suceava, and the Art Museums in Constanța and Râmnicu Vâlcea. A large portion of his art, belonging to collector Lazăr Munteanu, was destroyed during the 1944 Luftwaffe bombing of Bucharest. During his artistic career, Vermont also painted churches in Cernavodă (1893) and Mănești, Prahova (1895), as well as decorating the ceilings of the Kalinderu (1904) and Cantacuzino Palaces in Bucharest.

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