The painter Aurel Cojan was born in 1914 in Beceni, Romania. He passed away in November 2004 in Paris. His early works around 1933 show an expressionism with social character, reminiscent of Georg Grosz or Pascin. He discovered Western painting through books. The war in 1939 and then communism deeply marked him. In 1967, Aurel Cojan participated in the Sao Paulo Biennial 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. Although he regularly exhibits in various galleries and several Parisian institutions own his works, and his country recognizes his importance—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 great insolence and at a cost, total freedom in life and painting. This freedom is the great virtue of his work. Emerging from a figurative tradition that straddles expressionism and abstraction, shaken by the discovery of great American painting and its examples of formal radicality, his painting, as it developed in Paris, presents itself with the appearance of a colorful "writing" where figurative signs burst forth 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 is muted. But regardless of its register, a work by Aurel Cojan can be recognized by the fact that the painting seems like a living thing. Several public collections possess his works: the National Museum of Bucharest, the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris, the National Fund for Contemporary Art. Recommended Products Provided by Painting Gouache Drawing Aurel Cojan Abstract Expressionism 1990 Art View Product Painting Gouache Drawing Aurel Cojan Abstract Expressionism 1990 Art View Product Painting Gouache Drawing Aurel Cojan Abstract Expressionism Art 1990 View Product Gouache Drawing Aurel Cojan Abstract Expressionism signed 1990 Romania View Product Type: Gouache Country of origin: France Style: 1990 Genre: Abstract Characteristics: On Paper Theme: Abstract