British photographer Barry Lewis’ “Return to Romania 1990” exhibition opens at The Prince of Wales’ House in Viscri

September brings a new temporary exhibition in the barn of the Prince of Wales’s House in Viscri: a series of unique photographic portraits of Romanian artists, captured by the British photographer Barry Lewis in their workshops, shortly after the 1989 revolution.

Among the portraits are Ștefan Câlția, Horia Bernea, Marin Gherasim, Wanda Mihuleac, and Georgeta Năpăruș. The exhibition is the third temporary display of this year’s visiting season at The Prince of Wales’s House in Viscri, which ends on the 31st of October. From April to August 2023, The Prince of Wales’s House in Viscri received more than 25,000 Romanian and foreign tourists.

Barry Lewis visited Romania for the first time in the autumn of 1989 and traveled around Sibiu, Sighișoara, and Copșa Mică while working as a photographer for the London publication Sunday Times Magazine.

“In 1990, I was approached by Life Magazine to return to Romania as soon as possible and thus I arrived, again, in Bucharest on January 6th, to photograph and document the difficult birth of a new country,” he recounts.

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Meeting Romanian artists during the visit, he decides to photographically document a material focused on their experience and creative work which, despite an oppressive regime, surprises him with its strength, diversity and modernity. Therefore, in the summer of 1990, together with the writer Sally Richards, he continued visiting the workshops of Romanian artists, from young unknown ones to those with internationally fame, photographing them next to their works and writing stories about their lives and work.

“Conditions throughout the country were desperate and it was a real privilege to visit studios and see the outstanding work around the country. The art community seemed to have been fortified by the adversities they had faced,” Lewis remembers.

The reconverted barn of the house at Viscri 163 hosts, in addition to the permanent exhibition “The Transylvania Florilegium, several temporary exhibitions.

“When we opened The Prince of Wales’ House to the public, we aimed to bring to the attention of our visitors both Romanian or foreign artists whose work intersects with topics that are part of the interests of His Majesty King Charles III of the United Kingdom: the conservation and mindful use of our natural and cultural heritage, while informing a greater audience about their crucial importance. “Return to Romania 1990” brings to the forefront the stories of either well-known or undeservedly forgotten Romanian artists, in a moment of deep structural changes, generalized effervescence and maximum hope. Each artist was captured in a setting of his own, self-defining; therefore, the portraits are equally self-portraits,” declared Raluca Grigore, administrator of The Prince of Wales’ House in Viscri.

The 14 photos were selected from a larger collection, printed in large sizes and accompanied by explanatory texts by the Piscu School team – Virgil Scripcariu, sculptor, and Adriana Scripcariu, art historian, who were joined by the writer Cosmin Manolache and the graphic designer Alexandru Șchiopu. In 2021, the exhibition inaugurated the series of temporary exhibitions of the Piscu School Museum-Atelier.

“Transylvania had found a way into my heart during my travels and, after the exhibition of the artist portraits in Piscu, I came with my wife, Hannah, to stay in Viscri for a wonderful holiday. It is an honour to now have the artist’s portraits and other work shown here,” says Barry Lewis.