Conferences

Video-streamig

The National Theatre I.L.Caragiale has the pleasure to invite you to discover Adina Nanu’s spectacular collection of costumes and hats in the lobby of the Atelier Hall for two weeks (between 8th – 22nd of February). Adina Nanu is a critic and art historian, the author of the only book about Romania’s costumes history. The exhibition opens on the occasion of the conference held by Adina Nanu at the Atelier Hall from 11:00 a.m. on February 8th.

Adina Nanu’s collection comprises some hundreds of costumes which belonged to her family or donor friends, ranging from casual dresses to evening ones, from hats, men’s costumes, accesories, decorative objects or furniture articles from ladies’ boudoir from La Belle Epoque, from the inter-war period to present costumes.

Both the conference and the exhibition are a plea for style and beauty and promote the aesthetic refinement, the fashion and ellegance of times gone by. Stressing the importance of hats in ladies’ apparel, Adina Nanu will show that a hat isn’t a simple accesory, but it is also a definite indicator for the bearer’s social, psychological and cultural profile. The conference and the exhibition addresses not only those interested in the costume  history, but also art directors, fashion designers and all art lovers.

We hope that after attending the conference and the exhibition the NTB audience will cry out:”Chapeau – bas!”

About Adina Nanu

Critic and art historian. Between 1945-1950 she attended the Institute of Fine Arts in Bucharest and the Faculty of Letters simultaneously. Between 1947-1950 she attended the Medicine School to bone at anatomy. In 1977 she got her Ph. D in History of Arts with a thesis on 19th century costumes in Bucharest.

Assigned as an assistant to the National Arts Museum in Bucharest, she worked at the World and Romanian Art Galleries. Since 1950 she has been asked to work at the Arts History Department within the Institute of Fine Arts where she has remained until retirement, first as Assistant, then as Lecturer since 1954 and as Reader since 1968. As her colleagues, Eugen Schileru and Ion Frunzetti, she retired having this degree in 1987, since the Professor degree was awarded by the Ministry of Education only to those politically priviledged during the years before 1989. She taught World Art History classes, special classes of History of Painting, Sculpture and Decorative Arts and the first classes of History and Theory of the Costume in Romania at the Scenography section and then at the Fashion Design section whose foundation she took part in. Consequently, she published the first history of world costumes in Romanian, Art, Style, Costume in 1976. Since 1994 she has been teaching Visual Education and Styles in Costumes and Decoration classes at UNATC Bucharest, for the Staging Department during the first years, then for the newly founded Scenography section, but also for the Choreography section.  For the UNATC students she published Arts on humans (2001) and Can you see?Communication through Imaging (2002), she rewrote and augmented Art, Style, Costume ( second edition,2008).

Since 1975 she has been an INSEA member - International Society for Education through Art (UNESCO) and after 1990 founder and president of its branch in Romania.

She has been a member of the Union of Artists in Romania since its foundation in 1950. She exhibited drawings and sculptures in five UAP collective exhibitions and in a personal exhibition at Galateea Gallery in 2008.

Books published (selection): Gh. Tattarescu – The Painter (1955), Albrecht Dürer (1957), Theodor Pallady (1963), About Sculpture in Brief (1966), Octav Angheluţă – The Painter (1967), Sabin Popp – The painter (1968), Antonello da Messina (1969), A. Bourdelle – The Carver (1971), Lucas Cranach the Old (1972), On Dürer’s footsteps (1976), Art, Style, Costume (1976, the English version in 1981), Donatello- The Carver (1980), I. Gr. Popovici – The Carver (1984), Ion Lucian Murnu (in collaboration with Doina Mândru – 1986), Men and Fashion (2009).

Awards: The „Loyal Service” Order – commander, Union of Artists (2000), Honour Diploma by the Staging and Production University (2002), Professor Honoris Causa by the National University of Arts (2008).

„The collection formed itself as a consequence of my interest and respect for the object made with talent and skillfulness which I found in my house and kept them, I didn’t throw them away, as young people do nowadays. At first I played together with my parents, then with my children, using grandparents’ hats and clothes, then I used them as didactic material for the Arts History and Costume Art classes that I held. Relatives and friends also found in their wardrobes hats and dresses which were out of fashion, tailcoats and tuxedos which were useless, but they were filling the space and they gave them to us. I only bought the manikins and a few disparate pieces, links which were missing in the chain of some demonstrations. Even nowadays, my friends’ friends come to complete the exhibition with precious memories. I only like studying each hat or collarette to discover its origin, style and fashion it belonged to and to find its place in the exhibition so as to match the general geometry of the room, which has to recompose the atmosphere and perfume of every age. Among other things, I placed perfume bottles here and there, ranging from XIX th century pachouli to Coco Chanel’s Chanel no.5 and following. Due to these continuous changes, none of the fifteen exhibitions I have organized so far was similar to the others, starting with the first one from the Collection Museum in 1997, to the following ones from the National Arts Museum, History Museum, from Cotroceni Palace, Peles or the Costumes Museum in Venice”.

Translation made by Niculae Cristine

MTTLC, University of Bucharest