Paul Neagu (1938, Bucharest-2004, London) "soarele" Graphite On Paper Signed Lower Left

Paul Neagu (1938, Bucharest-2004, London) "Soarele" graphite on paper signed lower left, dated 1974, titled lower right "Soarele" and upper right "Pasarice distrusi", dimensions: 42 x 30 cm. Paul Neagu (1938, Bucharest - 2004, London) was a British-Romanian artist who worked in various media such as drawing, sculpture, performance art and watercolor. He died in London on June 16, 2004. His influences included Cubism and Marcel Duchamp. His works can be found in public collections including, among others, the British Museum in London, the Fonds départemental d'art contemporain en Seine Saint-Denis in Bobigny, France, the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art in Dublin, the Cantonal Museum of Fine Arts in Lausanne, Switzerland, the National Art Museum of Romania in Bucharest, the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the USA, and the Tate Gallery in London. For Paul Neagu, art is an expression of "desire in the face of systems that try to inhibit it," as he wrote; and desire involves "the re-establishment" of what he variously calls "the hyphen," "the summary," and "the gamma," all of which imply "materiality," particularly conveyed by "the figurative essence of sculptures, paintings, and drawings." Neagu's works, regardless of the medium, are full of desire, as their visceral energy suggests. —Donald Kuspit