page_title: Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaș
section_title: Early academic career
hierarchical_section_title: Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaș / Biography / Early academic career
caption_attribution_description: Română: Palatul Fundatiei Universitare a fost construit in fata Palatului Regal, pe locul caselor lui Grigore Paucescu, in doua etape: 1891-1895 si 1914 dupa proiectul arhitectului Paul Gottereau. Inaugurarea a avut loc la 14 martie 1895. Devenita, dupa 1947, Biblioteca Centrala Universitara. photograph of Bucharest Palatul Fundaţiei Universitare 'Carol I'
context_page_description: Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaș was a Romanian art historian, ethnographer, museologist and cultural journalist, also known as local champion of art conservation, Romanian Police leader and pioneer radio broadcaster. Tzigara was a member of the Junimea literary society, holding positions at the National School of Fine Arts, the University of Bucharest and lastly the University of Cernăuți. During his youth, he was secretary to Carol I, the King of Romania. Close to the royal family, he also served as head of the Carol I Academic Foundation, where he set up a large collection of photographic plates. Tzigara achieved fame in 1906 as founder of the "National Museum", nucleus of the present-day Museum of the Romanian Peasant, but was also involved in arranging and preserving the Theodor Aman art fund.
  During World War I, Tzigara-Samurcaș irritated Romanian public opinion by accepting to serve in a puppet administration set up by the Central Powers. Although his conduct was considered benign by the legitimate government, it drew him accusations of collaborationism from within academia, and aggravated his long-standing conflict with historian Nicolae Iorga.
context_section_description: Back in Romania, Tzigara unsuccessfully applied for the Archeology Chair created at the University of Iași, but lost; according to scholar and diarist Teohari Antonescu, who emerged as the victor, the competition was rigged in his own favor, even though Tzigara "had the good sense to come prepared." From 1899, he was librarian of the Carol I Academic Foundation and Professor of Aesthetics and Art History at the National School of Fine Arts. As Tzigara later acknowledged, his introduction to royalty came through a relationship with the Kremnitzes, his neighbors on Polonă Street, Dorobanți. This period saw the start of Tzigara's close relationship with Carol, whom the art historian later called "my most generous protector" and "the sovereign par excellence". Received into royal circles, he was a confidant of the Queen Consort and cultural patron, Elisabeth of Wied, whom he called "the animator of Romanian art". For a while, he was her private secretary, helping her fulfill her literary ambitions under the Carmen Sylva signature. Tzigara's recollections speak with enthusiasm about Elisabeth's works, as well as about the king's dislike for her interests in spiritism or philosophy, and discuss Carol's enduring affection for Mite Kremnitz.
  In order to support his lectures at the Fine Arts School, Tzigara began gathering photographic plates, a collection which grew in size over the following decades. It includes images of European monuments and works of art, as well as samples of Romanian architecture (in some cases, the only surviving images of since-demolished buildings) and copies of maps. The images of local life are considered of particular importance, since they document the Westernization and modernization of Romania's landscape. Mostly anonymous works, they most likely include some of Tzigara's own photographs. A few of them were inventoried by Editura Casa Școalelor, and some were published, in Tzigara's lifetime, by Buletinul Comisiunii Monumentelor Istorice or other Romanian scientific magazines. His image projections at the Carol I Foundation, supporting a students' elective course on sculpture and painting, became one of the better-known student summer activities.
  The young scholar was at the time also interested in the development of decorative arts, which he wanted to reflect the local tradition of handicrafts and notions of national specificity. According to art historian Ioana Vlasiu, Tzigara and painter-researcher Abgar Baltazar were in part responsible for fusing local folk art and international primitivism with Art Nouveau, thus paving the way for the Neo-Brâncovenesc school of decorators and architects. The interest in decorative works was a special focus of his visits to England and France—the South Kensington Museum impressed him greatly, as did the workshops of Eugène Grasset and Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran.
caption: Palace of the Carol I Academic Foundation, ca. 1904 (photograph by Alexandru Antoniu)
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