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Horia Damian

Romanian artist (1922–2012)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 9, 2025
Entity authorityQ3140531 ↗
Source-derived summary

Horia Damian (Bucharest, 27 Feb 1922 – Paris 14 May 2012) was a Romanian painter and sculptor.

Biography

Damian enrolled at the School of Architecture in Bucharest in 1941. In that same year he made his debut at the Salonul Oficial de Pictură at Sala Dalles in Bucharest. His first one-man show took place at the Romanian Athenaeum in Bucharest in 1942. He was awarded the Anastase Simu Prize for painting. In 1946, he won a scholarship to Paris, where he later settled.

After a few months with André Lhote he worked with Daniel Lager in 1949–50 and then studied with Auguste Herbin, becoming acquainted with Piet Mondrian's work through Felix del Marle (1889–1952). This encounter with abstract art led to his first truly original paintings, such as Starry Night, which consists of a geometric arrangement of white dots.

He destroyed most of the works he produced during the second half of the 1950s, an experimental period for him. His works of the early 1960s, executed in oil on a polyester base, are in a gestural, impasto style close to Tachism, as in Constellation.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Horia Damian” as romanian artist (1922–2012). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Horia, Damian and Romanian.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1922, 2012, 1941, 1942—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1922-02-27, 1922-01-01—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Horia, Damian and Romanian providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Horia Damian”, the useful work is to connect “romanian artist (1922–2012)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 9, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q3140531. VIAF identifies the subject as 95823673. The Library of Congress control number is n83137947. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1922, 2012, 1941 and 1942.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Horia Damian”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Horia Damian primary sources, Horia Damian archive and Horia research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Horia Damian”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Horia Damian” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.