Caloenesco, Aurelia (1895-1968)

Born in Romania, Caloenesco— her name sometimes misspelled as “Aurica Calonesco”—studied at the Beaux-Arts School, Bucharest, and exhibited even during the German occupation. She traveled to Paris in 1918 on an art scholarship and received guidance from Picasso, Utrillo, and Modigliani. In 1926 she married Robert C. Hallowell, who along with Walter Lippman and Herbert Croly founded the New Republic magazine (he had become an artist himself in 1925, devoting his energies to watercolors and portraits, including Theodore Roosevelt and the revolutionary John Reed). Caloenesco exhibited in Paris at the Salon des Artistes Independants and Salon de la Societe des Artistes Francais, 1922-1928, in New York City in solo shows and with her husband at the Montross Gallery (1929) and the Delphic Studios (1936). Responding to her 1931 show at Hartford’s Colonial Galleries a reviewer wrote: “Along with color and composition, she is preoccupied with line wherein can be found much of the beauty of her work. Her lines are always sweeping, flowing, and very live. Most of her pictures are flat, with no attention to the tricks of achieving three dimensional effects by the use of light and in accordance with the school which claims that two dimensional canvas should be used to represent two dimensional things” (Hartford Courant 23 Mar. 1931: 2). During 1935-36 Robert Hollowell served as assistant to the director of the Federal Art Project; he died in 1939 while working on a mural. 4 images at University of St. Joseph Art Museum. 1 work at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

 

Works in the New Deal Collection at GVCA by Aurelia Caloenesco:

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Autumn Bouquet
Autumn Bouquet

We see a wooden table, whose surface appears to consist of different textures, one half smooth and the other ridged. It becomes the space for an arrangement of autumn flowers and leaves in a white ceramic bouquet vessel, flowers painted on the vase itself. It rests on the table unnaturally, appearing two-dimensional. Bright white, orange and yellows are contrasted with dark browns, red and coppers colors to complete this bouquet. As the fall flowers begin to droop, winter seems to be in the near future. Caloenesco's background space creates a frame for the bouquet with an off-white background surrounded by a beige border; almost replicating the shape of the vase itself.

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