Background
Horia Damian was born on February 27, 1922, in Bucharest, Romania.
Horia Damian was born on February 27, 1922, in Bucharest, Romania.
Damian enrolled at the School of Architecture in Bucharest in 1941. He also studied with Auguste Herbin.
In 1941 Horia made his debut at the Salonul Official de Pictura at Sala Dalles in Bucharest. His first one-man show took place at the Ateneul Roman in Bucharest in 1942. In 1946, he won a scholarship to Paris, where he later settled.
After a few months with André Lhote he worked with Daniel Lager in 1949-50 and then studied with Auguste Herbin, becoming acquainted with Piet Mondrian's work through Felix del Marle. This encounter with abstract art led to his first truly original paintings, such as Starry Night, which consists of a geometric arrangement of white dots.
He destroyed most of the works he produced during the second half of the 1950s, an experimental period for him. His works of the early 1960s, executed in oil on a polyester base, are in a gestural, impasto style close to Tachism, as in Constellation.
By the late 1960s, his work had become increasingly geometric and sculptural, as exemplified by the Throne series; these are not free-standing sculptures, but rather set against plain backgrounds. The first of his large-scale monuments, 'Galaxy', a project for a Monument at Houston, Texas, was designed in 1972 and constructed in 1974 at the Neue Galerie in Aachen. Several further monuments in the Galaxy series were constructed, others remaining as maquettes. His fascination with the monumental continued in 'The Hill', constructed for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York from styrofoam covered with tiny paper spheres and then painted yellow. This was followed by similar monuments, such as that for San Francisco, which is illustrated in the gouache Project for San Francisco. He died on May 14, 2012.
Cosmogonie
1962Cosmogonie
1962Egyptian Gate
1964Eminescu Book
2007Etrava albă
1969Fortified City
1986Golden Constellation
1962Grande constellation bleue
1959Iconostas
1964Lancelot Asleep
2004Le Colisée
1987Mastaba
1983Porte dorée
1967Self-Portrait
2009The Hill
1976The Miracle
2005Self-Portrait
2009Triedrul
1969Trône
1969Untitled
1987