Paul Neagu

His works can be found in public collections including, among others, the British Museum, London, le Fond départemental d'art contemporain, Seine Saint-Denis, Bobigny, France, the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin, the Musee Cantonal de Beaux Arts, Lausanne, Switzerland, the National Museum of Art of Romania, Bucharest, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, USA, and the Tate Gallery, London. One of the works in Tate's collection, 36 Possibilities Realised Simultaneously, dating 1973-1974, reflects a variety of styles, from oil paint, pencil, ink and gesso. This work captures an early phase of Neagu's first years in the UK, when, in order to experiment as much as possible outside what was expected of him in the new art context, he created a fictitious art group, Generative Art Group, composed of other four artists invented by Neagu. One of his works, Going Tornado (1974), was used as an album cover for the Bruford album Gradually Going Tornado from 1980. "For Paul Neagu, art is an expression of 'desire in the face of the systems that attempt to inhibit it', as he writes, and desire involves 'the recovery' of what he calls, variously, the 'hyphen,' the 'abstract', the 'gamma', all of which involve the 'bodily', conveyed particularly through the 'figural essence of sculpting, paintings, drawings'. Neagu's works, whatever their medium, are certainly full of desire, as their visceral energy suggests." Donald Kuspit

Training under Julius Podlipny and Eugen Schileru is recorded. Anish Kapoor is recorded as having studied under Paul Neagu. The recorded working language is English. Places of work recorded in the authority are Edinburgh and London. Work by Paul Neagu is recorded in the collections of Tate and Art Institute of Chicago.

• Name — Paul Neagu • Born — 1938 • Birthplace — Bucharest, Romania • Died — 2004 • Place of death — London, UK • Known for — Sculpture, Performance Art, Drawing, Painting • Notable Works — Going Tornado, Horizontal Rain, Blinds Bite • Movement — Contemporary art