AURELIA CALOENESCO

"PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN"

OIL ON CANVAS, SIGNED

AMERICAN, C.1935

36 X 26 INCHES

 

Aurelia Caloenesco

1895-1968

Caloenesco was born in Romania on Sept 23, 1895.

Aurelia Caloenesco studied at the Beaux-Arts, Bucharest. She was active as a painter in Paris, Cuba and New York City.

Caloenesco exhibited in Paris at the Salon des Artistes Independants and Salon de la Societe des Artistes Francais, 1922-1928.

She married Robert Hallowell on February 14, 1926. Hallowell was one of the founders of New Republic Magazine in 1914 (business manager). Later devoted his energies to painting and was quite successful.

She exhibited in New York City in solo shows and with her husband at the Montross Gallery, 1929, and the Delphic Studios, 1936. In 1929 she moved to 408 West 20th St

The WPA/FAB employed Aurelia Caloenesco in the Easel Division from March, 1936 until January, 1937.

Hallowell died in 1939 on Staten Island.

She died in the Bronx in November of 1968.

Two galleries hold her works. St. Joseph College in West Hartford, CT.

April 27, 1929 issue of the New Yorker notes that Robert Hallowell ("one of the painters to rise quickly to a paying public") has a show of Cuban pictures at the Montross Gallery and that he shares the space with "Aurica" Calonesco.

January 4, 1936, New York Evening Post, the Critic notes: "A slick, chilly, decorative manner is used by the Romanian artist Aurilia Calonesco in her paintings at the Delphi Studio. Thoroughly decadent stuff..."