Sabin Bălașa was a modern Romanian painter who defined his style as cosmic Romanticism. Bălașa’s canvases are full of subjects he borrowed from mythology and legends. He was also known as a director of cartoons and an author of essays and articles on art and the destiny of humanity.
Background
Sabin Bălașa was born on June 17, 1932, in Dobriceni, Olt County, Romania. He was a son of Ion Bălașa, a priest, and Maria Pirvu, a teacher.
Sabin’s father was fascinated by archaeology and had his personal ethnographic museum which consisted of about 3000 historical items.
Education
Sabin Bălașa received his general education at the Frații Buzești High School which he finished in 1950.
A year later, Bălașa entered the Fine Arts Institute „Nicolae Grigorescu" (currently Bucharest National University of Arts) and had studied there for four years.
In 1965, Bălașa pursued his artistic training in Italy where he learned at the Academy of Language and Italian Culture, in Siena. The following year he attended the Academy of Fine Arts of Perugia.
Sabin Bălașa began his career as a painter. One of his important artworks is a huge fresco painting produced as the decoration for the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași. In total, Bălașa produced nineteen murals for the institution.
In 1973, the artist received other state commission according to which he had to portray Romanian politicians Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu. The same year, he was among the members of the Annecy International Animated Film Festival.
Since 1978, his artworks were exhibited in Rome, Stockholm, Kerkera (Greece), Moscow and other cities of the Soviet Union, Tbilisi (Georgia) and in his native Romania, at the National Museum of Art of Romania (1982), at the Bucharest World Trade Center (2000) and at the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University in Iași (2002) among others.
Despite his painting activity, Bălașa authored and directed twelve animated movies and wrote a lot of essays and novels on art.
The two last decades of his life, Sabin Bălașa gave private painting lessons to various notable Romanian personalities, like a singer Anna Lesko.
Sabin Bălașa was accused in the late 1980s as the adherent of the cult of personality because of his portrait of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu.
In fact, the artist did not correlate with the political regime of the period, the socialist realism. His canvases featured mythological characters instead of the lifetime of ordinary people and workers.
Views
Quotations:
"My Art is an eternal dream, not mine alone, but also a dream of mankind. Without mankind's participation, art would remain but a concealed dream. I am convinced that I bring more beauty and reason into the world, at a time when people, tired of empty words, need spiritual support."
"Art is an individual message addressed to mankind."
"In life, as in art, I followed my own path; I perpetuated my dream, thus helping others to discover their own. I live to create, always knowing how to be and remain a victor."
Membership
Union of Romanian Artists'
,
Romania
Connections
Sabin Bălașa had two children named Matel and Tudor.