Well-known departed Moldovan painter paid last respects

Chisinau, 5 November /MOLDPRES/ - A well-known painter, People’s Artist Valentina Rusu-Ciobanu was paid her last respects today. The fine artist passed away at the age of 101 years on 1 November. The day of 5 November was declared National Mourning Day all over Moldova, under presidential decree.     

The burial procession set out from the St. Theodora of Sihla Cathedral, where a group of priests led by Archpriest Ioan Ciuntu carried out the religious service, to the Monument to Ruler Stephen the Great. Here, the procession stopped and Culture Minister Sergiu Prodan read the mourning message conveyed by President Maia Sandu on this occasion.

In her message, the head of state said that ‘’the entire country pities the passing away of a genial artist, an artist whom we had the honour and happiness to be contemporaries. A painter who bore with a bold timidity and timid boldness her banner of faith in her art, in her mission on this land.’’ According to the official, Valentina Rusu-Ciobanu is an example of passing with dignity through times, without breaking, but also without bowing too much. She was not an artist on barricades, she was not a speaking trumpet; she just spoke clearly, inspired, coherently, through her work. Yet, this did not protect her from party-oriented ostracism, impossibility to exhibit works years in a row, from isolation and labeling. She went through and survived everything. She lived in the inter-war Romania, Soviet Moldova and the independent Moldova, without giving herself away, in the nice universe which she edified.     

”I am happy a lot that she enjoyed public gratitude during her life, that she enjoyed exhibitions, editings and honours in which she seemed not to have been interested too much. Yet, it is wonderful for us to be able to appreciate the value when the artist is living, to learn to distinguish between mediocre and excellent. I was fascinated by the exhibition of Valentina Rusu-Ciobanu at her 100th birthday anniversary. I was at that time happy by the fact that the National Art Museum was able to gather such an impressive collection, a wealth from which generations will be nourished spiritually. What do we leave after us? is the question which we should put ourselves every day. Valentina Rusu-Ciobanu found the nicest answer to this question. Good-bye, matchless woman of brush…’’ President Maia Sandu said in the end of her mourning message.     

Valentina Rusu-Ciobanu was born in Chisinau on 28 October 2020. In 1938-1940, she studied at the Arts School from Chisinau and then at the Academy of Fine Arts from Iasi. In 1947, Rusu-Ciobanu finished the Chisinau-based I. Repin Fine Arts School.    

The fine artist participated in group exhibitions abroad: France, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Russia, Germany and other countries. 

Valentina Rusu-Ciobanu was laureate of the State Prize of the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic in 1980. She was awarded the title of People’s Artist in 1985. In 1996, Rusu-Ciobanu was awarded the Order of the Republic and in 1998 she got the prize of the Fine Artists’ Union for her entire work. In 2010, she was awarded the tile of honorary citizen of the Chisinau city. In 2020, Valentina Rusu-Ciobanu was awarded the Cultural Merit Order, in rank of Grand Officer, C Category, Fine Arts, by Romanian President Klaus Iohannis.   

Valentina Rusu-Ciobanu was buried by the side of her husband, painter and drawer, mask-maker Glebus Sainciuc.