Romfilatelia approaches on postage stamps a popular theme, appreciated by collectors - art - this time reproducing illustrations of Roma people on the canvas of great Romanian artists. Dedicated to this minority, the postage stamps issue is entitled Roma people in Romanian painting.
Represented nationally by the National Agency for Roma, the Roma minority is officially celebrated every year on February 20th, when we celebrate the Remembrance Day of the Roma Slavery Abolition.
The four stamps of the issue illustrate paintings from the collection of the Museum of Art of Romania, signed by Iosif Iser - the stamp with the face value of lei 3.30, Nicolae Grigorescu - the stamp with the face value of lei 4.30, Pierre Bellet - the stamp with the face value of lei 4.50 and Nicolae Vermont - the stamp with the face value of lei 8.10.
Iosif Iser (1881 - 1958) graduated from high school in Bucharest, and studied painting in Munich and Paris. He worked in France at the Rancon Academy, collaborating also with French publications to which he was providing satirical drawings. In 1936, together with Camil Ressu, Gheorghe Petrascu, Alexandru Steriade and other painters, he co-founded the „Arta” group. He participated to various exhibitions in Romania and abroad. He was initially inspired by Expressionism, but following some trips to Spain and the East, Iosif Iser adopts a clearer range of colours, with an exotic shading, his paintings achiving a state of equilibrium and grandeur. In 1955 he was elected member of the Romanian Academy.
Nicolae Grigorescu (1838 - 1907) is considered the Master of the Romanian painting. Beginning with 1861, together with Auguste Renoir, he visits regularly Sébastien Cornu’s studio in Paris. Not long after, he joins the Barbizon School where he will complete his artistic education. Starting with 1873, he visits Rome, Naples, Pompei, then Greece, and Vienna in Austria to study. After 1890, the painter moves to Romania where most of his paintings depict rustic subjects: portraits of peasants, oxen carts, traditional Romanian landscapes.
Pierre Bellet (1865 - 1924) was a Romanian painter, coming from a French family, and was born in Galati. There are no public data about his activity in the Romanian school, but it is known that he attended the National School of Fine Arts in Paris, being a free auditor in the workshops of Alexander Cabanel and Benjamin-Constant. The first will exert a profound influence, at least around the year 1900 (compositions with orientalist notes, historical themes, etc.). He is present twice at the Official Salon in the French capital (1890, 1891) and succeeds to be rewarded with a mention both times. After returning home, he works in Bucharest, and his art reaches its climax in the early ‘20s when he creates portraits of princes, rulers and kings of the Union Hall in Alba Iulia.
Nicolae Vermont (1866 - 1932) was a Romanian painter and engraver. He studied at the School of Fine Arts in Bucharest with Theodor Aman, then in Munich and Paris. He excelled in the painting inspired by the lives of ordinary people, which he illustrated with deep emotion.
