Eugen Mihaescu (born August 24, 1937 in Bucharest) is a Romanian painter, graphic designer and politician, honorary member of the Romanian Academy since September 8, 1993.
He was born in Bucharest-Romania in an intellectual family. His father, Nicolae Mihaescu, was the assistant of a famous Romanian literature historian and critic, Tudor Vianu, at the University in the capital city. He studied in one of the most important colleges of the country, The Sfântul Sava College, and took painting classes at The Fine Arts Institute N. Grigorescu. He was expelled in his fifth year of studies in 1959 “for paying allegiance to capitalist decadent non-figurative art”. He was reinstated one year later but he never took his Master as he already collaborated with the most important Romanian publications and became well known for his graphic designs. In 1961 he became a member of The Art Union and joined the editorial team of the Secolul 20, one of the best known literature magazine, as an Art Director. Mihaescu was responsible for the innovative graphic design concept of the magazine but he lost his job in 1963 because of a critic who accused him in the Communist Party’s most important journal, Scanteia, of being an “admirer of the decadent capitalist art”. One year later he started to work for another important literature magazine, Luceafarul, and was the Art Director there until 1966. In 1963 he participated at The Sao Paolo Biennial and two years later he opened his first personal exhibition at Galeriile “Orizont” in Bucharest.
In 1967, he fled to Switzerland and settled in Lausanne where he worked as an Art Director for the Rencontre publishing house. He also started to publish drawings in the French newspapers Le Monde and Le Figaro Litéraire. In June 1971, Mihaesco left Lausanne for New York and met J.C. Suares who was the Art Director of the Op-Ed page of The New York Times. Then began their collaboration, in the middle of the Pentagon Papers and the Watergate scandals. Eugene Mihaesco joined the team led by John B. Oakes and Harrison Salisbury who wrote in his book entitled “The Indignant Years - Art & Articles From the Op-Ed Page of The New York Times” (Crown Publishers/Arno Press, 1971): “Art is not employed on Op-Ed to illustrate, to give the reader a picture of the scene the writer is trying to describe. The image is employed not as a visual aid, a space device for breaking blocks of type, a means to crystallising abstract concepts. No. The task of Op-Ed images is to create an environment which extends and deepens the impact of the word; to provide an ambiance in which the writer may more intensively penetrate the reader’s mind; an atmosphere which stimulates imagination; which creates a mood, an emotion, consistent with ideas, or the experience which the writer is presenting.”
From 1981, Mihaesco moved to New York and became a permanent collaborator of The New York Times. He designed 69 covers for the most prestigious weekly magazine The New Yorker and collaborated with many other important American publications: The Time Magazine, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic Monthly, Vogue and also with many European ones like Le Monde and Le Figaro. His drawings were reproduced in the Graphis magazine, one of the most important publications for graphics and design, which dedicated two of its issues to Eugene Mihaesco’s work. As Philip Beard said: “Graphis magazine was an immensely influential Swiss publication founded by Walter Herdeg that showcased the best in graphic design and illustration from its first issue in 1944.”
Between 1981 to 1982 he taught at The Pratt Institute about ideas in the creative process: where to look, how to find and how to express ideas in art. In 1986 he made a private visit to his homeland and decided to involve in the fight against Romanian totalitarian regime of Nicolae Ceausescu. He published drawings and essays in the American press.
In 1996 he was officially invited to join the campaign team of the presidential candidate Ion Iliescu as his personal adviser. Mihaesco was appointed ambassador at large of the then President of Romania. Between 2001-2003 Eugene Mihaesco was appointed Romania’s Permanent Delegate to UNESCO in Paris and was a member of the Executive Comity of the international organisation. In the same time he continued his collaboration with the French journal Le Monde and started writing columns in the Romanian papers too.
In 2004 he was elected in the Romanian Senate on the Great Romania Party lists and was appointed vice-president of the Romanian Foreign Policy Committee in the 2004-2008 legislature. In his parliamentary activity he was member of the parliamentary friendship groups with Bahrein, France, Ivory Coast and UNESCO. Between 2005-2007 he represented Romania to the European Parliament where he was a member and vice-president of The Identity,Tradition and Sovereignty group. By the end of 2012 Eugen Mihaescu attacked the leader of the Great Romania Party, Corneliu Vadim Tudor, in a pamphlet, "The Rhinoceros", published by the Cotidianul journal and left the party.
In 2011, Eugen Mihaescu published his first book of memoirs “Intre linii” (Between The Lines), followed in 2013 by a collection of essays called “Strigate in pustiu” (Screaming in The Desert), another memoirs volume entitled “Rebel” in 2016, and the novel “Corina” in 2017.
He exhibited in many cities over the world: Barcelona, Bologna, Bordeaux, Sao Paolo, Buenos Aires, Geneva, Lausanne (at „Alice Polli” Gallery in 1965 and the „Wibenga” Gallery in 1966), in New York (at Gallerie „St. Etienne” in 1981 and 1984), in Paris (at the Louvre Museum of Decorative Art in 1973 and at the Modern Art Museum of the Pompidou Center in 1988), etc. In 1983 he received the „Page One Award” for the best cover from the American Journalist, and in 1985 he received the Gold Medal from the American Art Director's Club; in 1988 he was honoured by The Romanian-American Academy for Science and Arts; in 2000 he was awarded by President Emil Constantinescu with The National Order for Merit.
