Background
Sterian was born in Buzau, Romania, on March 16, 1897, to a middle-class family.
Paris, France
Margareta Sterian was a student of the École du Louvre in Paris between 1926 and 1929.
Bucharest, Romania
In 1929 she entered the University of Bucharest.
Self-Portrait by Margareta Sterian.
Sterian was born in Buzau, Romania, on March 16, 1897, to a middle-class family.
Margareta Sterian was a student of the Académie Ranson and the École du Louvre in Paris between 1926 and 1929. When she returned to Romania in 1929, she studied sociology at the University of Bucharest, and also participated in ethnographic research conducted by Dimitrie Gusti in the village of Drăguş.
At the beginning of her artistic career, Sterian created a series of portraits titled Copii din Drăguş (The Children of Drăguş). It was exhibited with Sterian's other artworks at her first solo exhibition, which was held in 1929 at the Mozart Hall, Bucharest.
In 1932, Margareta Sterian took part in the first annual painting exhibition of the Arta Nouă (New Art) group. Among other participants were Marcel Iancu, Henri Daniel, Max Hermann Maxy, and Milița Pătraşcu. Sterian was connected with avant-garde artists’ circles, showing her paintings at events organized by the group. She was also a member of the Criterion group, which was founded in 1933 by avant-garde artists of the Contimporanul group. Sterian collaborated with Marcel Iancu on ceramic items and frescoes for several houses in Bucharest between 1933 and 1936. Her second solo exhibition took place in 1933 at the Hasefer studio.
Along with Mac Constantinescu, Max Herman Maxy, Marcel Iancu, Milița Pătraşcu, and Nina Arbore, Sterian participated in the Exhibition of Romanian Modern Art, which was organized by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti in Rome in 1934. She exhibited her artworks at the third exhibition of the Contimporanul group in 1935, along with Leon Zack, Giorgio de Chirico, and some others.
During a certain period of time, Margareta Sterian also worked as a set designer, producing costumes as well as scenes for the Simfonia dansului (Dance Symphony) and Preludiu spaniol (Spanish Prelude) ballets, staged at the National Opera House.
After Romania’s implementation of anti-Jewish legislation between 1940 and 1944, Sterian presented her paintings either unsigned or only with her initials. Margareta Sterian's last event in which she took part under her real name was the Official Autumn Salon in 1940. After the Second World War, she participated in major annual exhibitions and salons of Romania, as well as in shows of Romanian art, which were organized in Budapest, Warsaw, Munich, Geneva, Paris, and Istanbul.
Though Sterian worked with remarkable stylistic integrity, particularly in terms of the chromatic range and flat plastic manner, the artist managed to develop new forms of expression as well as innovative perspectives in her evolution from a realistic, even somewhat naive, vision to fluid, symbolic compositions. Fascinated by the pictorial urban scenery of market scenes and crowds, she was sensitive to local traditions and customs and depicted them in a nostalgic way in such artworks as Nuntă evrească (Jewish Wedding, circa 1937-1938). Her iconographic repertoire was influenced by Chagall and Goya and it belongs to European expressionism.
Margareta Sterian released her first volume of poetry in 1945. Then followed her short prose collections, for instance, Evocări de călătorie (Travel Memories, 1971) and the novel Castelul de apă (Water Castle, 1972). Her poems were collected in Soare difuz (Diffuse Sun, 1979). Moreover, Sterian was known to be a translator. She translated works by Walt Whitman, Eugene O’Neill, and William Faulkner, as well as anthologies of American, Polish, and Irish poetry.
Portrait
Green Umbrella
Park Descending Towards Harlem, New York
Balcic
Anxious Flowers
The Red Car
Dream Jungle
Seals in the Arena
Mountain Hamlet
Behind the Curtain
At the Clowns
Vase with Flowers
Sunset in Delta
Circus scene
Road of No Return
Illustration for V. Voiculescu's "Last Shakespearean Sonnets"
In circus
City Lights
Flowers
Wedding in the Backyard
Landscape in Ţapului
Jewish Wedding
Further
Suite
Flowers
Untitled
Easter in the Village
Illustration for V. Voiculescu's "Last Shakespearean Sonnets"
Parish in the Mountains with Painted Houses
Scene with Two Faces
Illustration for V. Voiculescu's "Last Shakespearean Sonnets"
Landscape With Water
Landscape
Primavera
The Circus in the Tent
View from the artist's studio
Daughter of the Pharaoh
The Alarm
Bride's Run
Sunday in Breaza
The Fisherman Legend
Illustration for V. Voiculescu's "Last Shakespearean Sonnets"
Among the Muddy Volcanoes
Margareta Sterian was married twice. Her first marriage was with a banker from Ploiești, and the second with the poet Paul Sterian.