Paul Neagu: sculptor, painter, poet, larger-than-life character.

Neagu settled in Britain in 1970 and embarked in a remarkable career as an artist and teacher. Laughing in the face of the Establishment, Neagu even formed a fictitious art group (Generative Art Group) which exhibited regularly. Influenced by Structuralism and philosophy, Neagu’s art worked with the Word for an even deeper impact.

Born in Bucharest in 1938, Paul Neagu grew up in the western Romanian city of Timisoara, and returned to Bucharest to study in the Academy of Fine Arts in 1963. By the late 1960s, following a relaxation of the isolationist views of the Romanian communist state, Romania had a thriving contemporary art scene, on the same level with that in the West, and dialogue was once again possible. Accordingly, Richard Demarco, a young Edinburgh-based artist and curator, organised a show of Paul Neagu’s work in 1969. In 1970, Paul decided to leave Romania and settle in Britain, receiving British citizenship in 1977.

In 1975 he had an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, where his work was brought, for the first time, in front of a much wider audience. In 1975 also, Paul created the first ‘Hyphen’ – a form in which was concentrated an entire philosophy, and an element which was going to be an integral part of his vision until the time of his death. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s Paul kept on working on the development of his unique vocabulary.

After the Romanian revolution of 1989, Paul exhibited again in Romania, where, after the unfortunate revival and imposition of Socialist Realism in the 1970s-80s, his work was once again appreciated by the audiences. In 2001, Paul suffered a stroke. His great ability to communicate was greatly diminished, yet, through a long process of recovery, never complete, Paul continued to work and to distil ideas. In 2003 the Tate Gallery acquired a great number of his works and exhibited some of them at Tate Britain.

Nevertheless, his health was failing him and on 16 June 2004, Paul Neagu passed away.

By any standards, Paul Neagu was a great artist – indeed, he was a great architect of new frameworks for art. Influenced by philosophy, sometimes to a larger extent than by contemporary art, Paul wrote an entirely new language of forms and meanings, and pioneered a novel type of art/knowledge, paralleled by that of Joseph Beuys or Yves Klein. This vision is by no means easy to understand, demanding from the viewer an open mind paired with empathy and great dedication to art as means of expression.

When thinking of Paul in relation to other great Romanians, Brancusi is the first who comes to mind, and the time may come when Paul’s work will be seen as important as that of his predecessor’s. While developing his oeuvre, Paul also taught, starting in the late 1970s, at the sculpture department of Hornsey College of Art, and then at the Slade School of Art. His legacy can be observed in the works of Anish Kapoor, Antony Gormley, Rachel Whiteread, Tony Cragg, Langlands & Bell.