Grecu Fira

About

In the mid-1930s, the Brik family moved to Bucharest, where Fira continued her studies at the Romanian gymnasium and then enrolled in the painting department of the Academy of Fine Arts (where she met her husband). World War II interrupted her studies, and she returned to Bessarabia, and with the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War in 1941, she was evacuated. She wandered as a refugee through the steppes of the North Caucasus, fleeing the advance of German troops, and eventually ended up in Kazakhstan. After the war, she returned to Chisinau and re-enrolled at the School of Arts. Ceramics was her passion. Grecu traveled through villages, collecting materials for an album on peasant folk art and worked in rural potteries: at that time, Chisinau did not have the necessary conditions for ceramic production. Starting in 1963, she began traveling to the creative center in Dzintari, where she worked with groups of artists from different regions of the Soviet Union. In the Baltic countries, she created her most beautiful ceramic pieces, which are now part of the collection of the National Museum of Art of Moldova. In 1958, she was a consultant for the documentary film "Ballad of the Masters" about Moldovan folk crafts. In 1969, she created costumes for the performances at the Luceafărul Theater (director S. Șcurea, artist M. Grecu). In 1971, he participated in the International Ceramics Symposium in Vilnius, where his work "Moldovan Decorative Columns" was recognized by journalists and art critics. He was part of the leadership of the Decorative and Applied Arts section of the Union of Artists of Moldova and was invited to design important exhibitions, including one in Moscow (in 1968, at Manezh). He died in 1992 in Chisinau. An exhibition of E. Grecu's works was held at the Constantin Brancusi Gallery in Chisinau in November 2011.