The painter Aurel Cojan was born in 1914 in Beceni, Romania. He passed away in November 2004 in Paris. His early works around 1933 reveal a socially charged expressionism, reminiscent of Georg Grosz or Pascin. He discovered Western painting through books. The war in 1939, followed by communism, deeply marked him. In 1967, Aurel Cojan participated in the Sao Paulo Biennale with a series of drawings. He moved to Paris in 1969 after seeking political asylum. His first exhibition in Paris took place in 1978 at the Chevalier gallery, followed by other exhibitions at the Ralph Gallery and Jacques Barbier Gallery. His career is quite atypical. While he regularly exhibits in various galleries, and several Parisian institutions own his works, and his country recognizes his significance—particularly by dedicating a retrospective to him at the Romanian Cultural Center in Paris in 1999—Aurel Cojan remains fiercely independent. He knows how to preserve, with the greatest insolence and at a cost, complete freedom in life and painting. This freedom is the great virtue of his work. Emerging from a figurative tradition straddling expressionism and abstraction, shaken by the discovery of American painting and its examples of formal radicalism, his painting, as it developed in Paris, appears as a colorful "writing" where figurative signs burst and almost entirely transform into abstract configurations. This writing oscillates between an unprecedented virulence, a kind of pictorial "savagery" of impressive power, and the sometimes ecstatic, sometimes melancholic softness of works on paper, where color veils itself. But regardless of its register, a work by Aurel Cojan is recognizable by the fact that the painting seems a living thing. Several public collections own his works: National Museum of Bucharest, Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris, National Fund of Contemporary Art. Recommended Products Provided by Painting Peinture Abstraction Drawing Aurel Cojan Abstract Expressionism 1996 See the product Painting Peinture Gouache Drawing Aurel Cojan Abstract Expressionism 1990 Art See the product Painting Peinture Gouache Drawing Aurel Cojan Abstract Expressionism 1990 Art See the product Painting Peinture Gouache Drawing Aurel Cojan Abstract Expressionism Art 1990 See the product Painting Gouache Drawing Aurel Cojan Abstract Expressionism signed 1990 Romania See the product Type: Gouache Country of origin: France Style: 1990 Genre: Abstract Characteristics: On Paper Theme: Abstract