George Stefanescu

George Ştefănescu-Râmnic (20 April 1914 – 29 October 2007) was a contemporary Romanian painter.

Radu Carneci wrote of him in 1984:

George Ştefănescu was born in 1914 in the commune of Plăineşti (now Dumbrăveni, Vrancea), between the cities of Focşani and Râmnicu Sărat. His father Gheorghe was descended from a Macedonian family from Bitola, Macedonia. His mother, Sanda, born Căţănaru, was originally from the commune of Crucea de Jos, Vrancea County. From 1926 to 1933 he attended the secondary school in Râmnicu Sărat. His art teacher recommended him to the church painter Constantinescu and he became the latter's apprentice after school. In 1933, after receiving his baccalaureate, he moved to Bucharest. He took lessons with the painter Ion Theodorescu-Sion, a noted personality in the Romanian art world, for the entrance examination of the Academy of Creative Arts. From 1933 to 1936 he studied at the Academy of Creative Arts in Bucharest in the class of the painter Nicolae Dărăscu.

In 1936, he had his first solo exhibition in a Bucharest art gallery, and also took a study trip to Vrancea and Balcic. In 1937 he attended artillery officer's school, had an exhibition in Craiova with the writer Ion Ionescu; the latter presented his novel Oameni cu buche ("Men with books" / "Literate men"). That year, he also began to sketch designs for women's clothing and fashion accessories for a Bucharest fashion house. He worked for the construction company SONACO, became a member of Sindicatul Artistilor din România (the Union of Romanian Artists, which included painters, sculptors and graphic artists) and because a student at the well-known private art seminar "Zapan". His professors there were well-known painters such as Lucian Grigorescu, Platon Cazanovici and Mihail Gheorghita.

In 1938, together with the fresco painter Alexandru Mazilescu he worked painting murals. In Bukovina, he had the opportunity to observe the well-known wall paintings of the painted monasteries. From 1940 to 1944 he served in the Romanian military during World War II, with a corps that advanced as far as Crimea. During the Axis retreat, his horse stepped on a mine, which exploded, killing the horse, and leaving him with a serious head wound that, for over a decade, left him unable to distinguish colors, which mean that he could not paint and had to seek other work. In 1945 he participated in seminars in theatre directing and set design at ARLUS, led by Professor Ion Sava. He was the teacher of the painter Zwy Milshtein.

In 1946–1947 he was employed at the film production company Filmul Popular, who had a laboratory in Bucharest on Strada Scaune. He worked with some Hungarian specialists to modernize this film laboratory, eventually becoming head of the laboratory. As a result, he was assigned to modernize a film laboratory in Mogoşoaia, owned by the National Tourism Office (Oficiul National de Turism, ONT). The Mogoşoaia laboratory had been wrecked in the bombardament toward the end of the War. This time, he had to do the job without professional Hungarian help.

During his time at the ONT laboratory (1948–1951), he also founded his own advertising studio for the film industry.

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