Octav Băncilă

Octav Băncilă
Octav Băncilă (foto)
Born	4 February 1872 Corni, Botoșani, Romania
Died	3 April 1944, (72) București, Romania
Nationality	Romanian
Education	George Enescu University of Arts of Iași, Academy of Fine Arts, Munich
Known for	painter
Movement	Realism (arts)

Octav Băncilă (Romanian pronunciation: [okˈtav bənˈt͡ʃilə]; 4 February 1872 – 3 April 1944) was a Romanian realist painter and left-wing activist. He was the brother of Sofia Nădejde, a feminist journalist, and the brother-in-law of Ioan Nădejde (an atheist and socialist thinker, editor of the magazine Contemporanul).

Born in Botoşani, he remained an orphan at age 4, and was raised in Iaşi by his much older sister and her husband, who first encouraged Octav's talent and passion for art. After completing primary school, he entered the Fine Arts School in Iaşi, where he was taught by Gheorghe Panaiteanu Bardasare, Constantin Daniel Stahi, and Emanoil Bardasare, graduating in 1893. Between 1894 and 1897, he lived and studied abroad on a scholarship: first in Italy and France, and finally in Germany, where he studied under Nicholaos Gysis at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich (it is not known whether he ever graduated).

Upon his return, he attempted to open a studio in downtown Iaşi, but financial constraints forced him to settle on the outskirts; it was during that time that Băncilă began exploring his major themes: the lives of peasants, factory workers, impoverished Jewish traders and artisans, conscripted soldiers, and of nomadic Roma people. After 1901, he taught calligraphy and art in primary schools in the city. Impressed by the outcome of the 1905 Revolution in the Russian Empire, he was soon active in socialist circles, and became an acquaintance of major intellectual figures on the Left, including Gala Galaction and Paul Bujor.