Elena Vavilyna

Elena Vavilyna

Biography

Elena Vavilyna, (known also as Nelly Vavilin), (she/her), visual artist, (b. 1901, Brăila, Romania, d. 1971, București, Romania) of Romanian ethnical background, has lived in Romania and several countries of choice, such as France and Bulgaria. She attended the School of Fine Arts in Bucharest, under the guidance of Dimitrie Serafim and Ipolit Strâmbu, then continued her studies in Paris, at the Julian Academy, with Paul Albert Laurens and Clement Serveau, preparing mainly for plein-air painting. After a documentary trip to Bulgaria, she discovered oriental art and fell in love forever with the Balchik area. Balchik is a town on the Black Sea coast, in the Dobrich region, Southern Dobrogea, in northeastern Bulgaria, located 42 km from Varna. It is currently one of the tourist attractions of Bulgaria on the Black Sea.. She was part of the generation of female painters who, along with Nutzi Acontz, Lucia Dem Bălăcescu or Nina Arbore, created the women's associations of the era, being the founder of the "Women Painter's Group" ("Femeile Pictore"), an important artistic support group for women in the first half of the 20th century.

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Arrest under communist regime

Elena Vavilyna had a difficult life beyond the easel. She was arrested on February 20, 1959 for agitation. By sentence no. 818/17.VII.l959 of the Bucharest Military Tribunal, she was acquitted and released on August 21, 1959. "The painter Elena Vavilyna was arrested some time ago, together with other people who criticized the regime. I learned this news from the painter Sorin Ionescu, who did not know any other details," according to a testimony filed with her file at „Securitate”, the political police force active in Romania.

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Artistic disciplines:

• Painting

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Artistic practice

Educated in Bucharest and Paris, Elena Vavilyna showed a predilection for the bohemian portrait (facilitated by the social environment of her sister, Jeanette, a ballerina of the "Constantin Tănase" Theater) and for the oriental landscape, for which the atmosphere of Balchik proved ideal. Balchik became a leitmotif of her art, in a period when almost all Romanian painters were fascinated by the natural and human landscape of the city, which became an artists' colony during the summer. Elena Vavilyna's post-impressionism with Fauvist tones in chromatics, her passion for geometric construction and for decorative treatment in intense shades, allows her to capture a less painted side of Balchik: the architectural one, without losing the unique chromatic expressiveness of the place.

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Notable themes

Recurring themes in Vavilyna's practice include the experience of city architecture and urban portraits.

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Works in collections and public recognition

• exhibited nationally and internationally, at museums and art galleries.
• works in art museums collections and private collections.

A selection of works are in the Romanian Baia Mare County Museum of Contemporary Art.

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Selected exhibitions

Between 1922 and 1967 he held ten personal exhibitions in Bucharest and also participated in twenty-seven Bucharest salons and group exhibitions. In 1920 and 1922, respectively, she participated in the Artistic Colony in Baia Mare. Exhibited constantly at the Official Salons starting in 1925 and between 1938 and 1942 at the events of the Artistic Youth.

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Press

• Jurnalul.ro: List of artists arrested under communist regime, , source: ACNSAS, fond Documentar, file no. D 000018, listed at no. 54 in this daily newspaper article.
• Artist page on Modernism.com, research carried out by Cosmin Nasui on artists arrested under communist regime in Romania

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Gallery Representation

• None known.

For further commercial and non-commercial inquiries, feel free to contact NPK

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Hashtags

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