This summer, the Brukenthal National Museum in Sibiu, Romania, will open one of the largest exhibitions to date of work by sculptor Ovidiu Maitec (1925-2007). Marking 100 years since his birth, Ovidiu Maitec 100 brings together works from Romanian museums, private collections and the artist’s family collection for a retrospective celebrating Maitec’s work. We spoke to Ovidiu’s son, Stéphane Maitec, about his own early creative influences, his parents’ artistic partnership, and Ovidiu’s life and legacy, including his experiences at Kettle’s Yard, which Stéphane described as a notable chapter in his father’s life and a lasting source of pride.
Stéphane was shaped from an early age by the artistic world created by his parents: “My father would show me how to shape animals out of clay, and he would carve aeroplanes, boats, and all sorts of toys out of wood for me. Each one had a story, and I would imagine entire worlds, which surely shaped my creativity as a young child.”
His memories of his mother’s painting studio, the artist Sultana Maitec (1928 – 2016), are just as vivid: “Colours were pure magic. The tubes of paint and brushes were an irresistible attraction for me. I ‘painted’ on the walls, on my clothes, on the floor, on pieces of furniture… but my mother always encouraged me to keep going – the studio was a free space. I believe this idea of having a place where all your thoughts can come to life in colour influenced me profoundly.”
Ovidiu and Sultana Maitec met in the 1950s at the National University of Arts Bucharest (UNArte), at a time of strict Soviet control over artistic production. Sultana, a second-year student at the time, defied these rigid standards by using impasto with a palette knife, and being forced to retake the year. Ovidiu, an assistant professor in the Artistic Anatomy department, was fascinated by her courage, her talent, and her beauty, and stood up for her. Their partnership would go on to last more than fifty years, and Stéphane and his wife Dana now carry on that legacy as artists working in collaboration.
One major milestone in Ovidiu’s career came in the late 1960s, as Romania’s political climate began to shift. Limited openings toward the West offered new opportunities for artists who had previously been restricted by the aesthetic framework of Socialist Realism.
These greater creative freedoms allowed Maitec to move further into abstract art and begin working with wood in increasingly creative ways. Maitec’s work was noticed by art critics in Romania, and the Ministry of Culture proposed him to participate in the 1968 Venice Biennale.
The Biennale marked Maitec’s first major international exposure, and the response was immediate. After a solo show at The Circle Gallery in London followed in 1969, Maitec was invited him to take part in the exhibition Romanian Art Today, held at the 1971 Edinburgh International Festival. It was there that Ovidiu Maitec met Kettle’s Yard founder, Jim Ede, and where Ede also first encountered Radar II (1970), a sculpture he later purchased and put on permanent display in the Kettle’s Yard house.
In 1973, Maitec held a solo show at Kettle’s Yard, in what would become a defining moment in his international career. The exhibition catalogue included the following text by Jim Ede:
“Ovidiu Maitec is a sculptor in the deepest tradition of Romanian art, sensitive, alert and purposeful. Like Brâncuși he is immediately conscious of the needs of different materials; stone being stone and wood being wood. His work in whatever substance springs from a grand and living love, and although we are in the midst of a technological age he will, for instance, show the beauty of wood and the love of creating an object by hand.”
Stéphane shared that although he never met Jim Ede, “I can still see the joy in my father’s eyes when he used to tell me about him. I believe many of his artworks were created with Jim in mind.”
While the works included at Kettle’s Yard were of an intimate scale, Stéphane explained that his father’s vision was always expansive: “every sculpture, regardless of its size, was conceived as a potential project for a future monument… monumentality was one of the most important and obsessive aspects of Ovidiu’s creation.”
Alongside works from these earlier periods, Ovidiu Maitec 100 will also present sculptures from a more painful chapter in Maitec’s life, which marked a profound shift in both his style and subject matter. During the December 1989 Revolution, his studio was caught in the crossfire, with Maitec losing all his work, including 70 major sculptures, in a fire. That loss, Stéphane says, was transformative. After the fire, his works became much more melancholic and grounded.
Featuring close to fifty works spanning multiple decades, Ovidiu Maitec 100 reflects the full arc of the artist’s creative journey. As the exhibition opens, we’re reminded of the enduring impact of his vision, not only in Romania, but here in Cambridge, where Radar II (1970) and Bird (1969) still hold their place among the light-filled rooms of Kettle’s Yard.
With special thanks to Stéphane Maitec for his warmth, eagerness in answering our questions, and for sharing such thoughtful reflections.