Ion Șinca1950—2014 The official archive of his work

Ion Șinca · The places · An open question

Where was this painted?

Of the 216 documented works, 133 of them do not say anywhere where they were painted — not the title, not the exhibition catalogue, not the family notes. You can see a hill, a fence, a willow; you cannot see which one.

They are not lost. Nobody has written it down yet. The place of a painting is not in the canvas — it is in the memory of someone who was there, and that memory fades faster than the paint.

That is what this page is for. If you recognise a hill, a house, a fence, a corner of a yard — or if you simply remember which summer he went there — say so. It goes into the archive with your name beside it, like any other source.

How to write: press “I know where this is” under any work and an email opens with its title already filled in. Give the place as precisely as you can — village, hill, road, “X's yard” — and how you know: you were there with him, you saw it on the easel, he told you.

You do not have to be certain. “I think it is the road to Podu Cheii, but I would not swear to it” is good information; it gets written down exactly like that, with the doubt in it. dd@m75.ro

The early years

1976—198918 works

Ploiești, industry, compositions. He was teaching at the Art High School and restoring at the Art Museum. From the same years, the works that do say where they were painted look like this: Ploiești (2), Radzyń Chełmiński (2), Valea Doftanei (1).

The nineties

1990—199919 works

The studio on Ion Creangă 15 and the first long trips — Valea Doftanei, Cornu, the sea. From the same years, the works that do say where they were painted look like this: Cornu (4), Vama Veche (3), Ploiești (2), Valea Doftanei (2), Brebu (1), Măgurele (1).

The two-thousands

2000—200953 works

The busiest years in the field: Brebu, Pietriceaua, Podu Cheii, Cornu. Almost half the archive comes from here. From the same years, the works that do say where they were painted look like this: Pietriceaua (10), Brebu (7), Ploiești (5), Cornu (4), Valea Doftanei (2), Aluniș (1).

The last years

2010—201440 works

Viscri, the sea, and more and more work made in the studio. From the same years, the works that do say where they were painted look like this: Ploiești (16), Viscri (7), Vama Veche (5), Brebu (2), Cornu (2).

Undated

3 works

Not even the year is written on these. If you recognise the place, the year can often follow.

Why we do not place them “roughly”

Almost everything here is from Prahova County — you can tell from the hills, the houses, the way the fences are made. We could have placed them all there and the map would have looked three times richer. We did not: a map that guesses is no longer a map, and an archive where you can no longer see the difference between “we know” and “we suspect” is good for nothing.

When an answer comes in, the work gets a note with the place and the source — “established by the family”, “according to X” — and moves onto the map. That is how Vama Veche, Rucăreni and the studio on Ion Creangă 15 got there.

The archive's other open question is the second half of the same story: where the works are today ↗ — 156 of them have no address either.

The map of places ↗ · Where is it now? ↗ · The archive of the work ↗