Silva-Gabriela BEJU
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Romanian sculptor.
A sculptor, she worked together three materials rarely brought side by side: stone, gold and slate. Trained in Bucharest, she settled in France in 1973 and taught at the University of Paris-V. Her cross bears two words to which the notices hold no key: “Fleur, Bulcensky”.
The story
Stone, gold and slate: three materials sculpture rarely brings together — the heavy, the precious and the flaking. They were her vocabulary.
Born at Turnu Măgurele, in Romania, on 30 May 1946, she studied at the Institute of Fine Arts in Bucharest from 1965 to 1971. A sculpture scholarship took her to Cologne, then to the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris: the route by which Eastern European artists crossed to the West, through the studios.
She settled in France in 1973 and never left. In 1984 she became a professor at the University of Paris V, where she spent the rest of her career.
She died in Paris on 13 January 2021 and rests in Division 12, beneath a stone cross where two words keep her name company: “Fleur, Bulcensky”.
The grave
A simple inscription — “Silva-Gabriela BEJU, 1946-2021” — and, on a stone cross, two words standing alone: “Fleur, Bulcensky”. Nothing recalls the sculpture, or the Bucharest studio where she learned to carve, or the University of Paris-V where she taught, or the drapery she drew from Carrara marble in 1978.
On site, do not miss
The stone cross and its two words, “Fleur, Bulcensky”, to which no source gives the key. The main inscription gives the first name in its Romanian form: Silva-Gabriela.
Visitors' questions
Where is Silva-Gabriela Beju's grave?
In Division 12, chemin Talma, second row. A stone cross bears two enigmatic words: “Fleur, Bulcensky”. The Division is also that of Géricault and of the tragedian Talma, who gave the path its name.
Théodore GéricaultWhat did Silva-Gabriela Beju sculpt in?
Stone, gold and slate — three materials sculpture rarely brings together: the heavy, the precious and the layered. She had trained at the Fine Arts school in Bucharest from 1965 to 1971, then in Cologne on a sculpture scholarship, and finally at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
Jean CarrièsWhy a Romanian sculptor at Père-Lachaise?
Because she had lived in France since 1973: she arrived on a sculpture scholarship, taught at the University of Paris V from 1984, and spent her whole career here. The cemetery holds many artists who came from elsewhere and stayed.
Jean-Paul AlbinetWhere did she learn to sculpt?
At nineteen she entered the Bucharest Institute of Fine Arts, in the studio of the sculptor Ion Lucian Murnu, and graduated in 1971. A grant took her to the drawing school in Cologne, then to the Beaux-Arts in Paris. She settled in France in 1973 and never left.
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