Ion Irimescu Art Museum Fălticeni

The Ion Irimescu Art Museum in Fălticeni is the most important museum centre dedicated to a single Romanian visual artist, housing the largest single-author collection in the country and one of the most representative in Europe. It is located at Strada Mihai Eminescu nr. 2, in the centre of Fălticeni, Suceava County, in a historic monument building constructed in 1846 by the boyar Alecu Forăscu-Botez. Over the years the building served various purposes — a boyar residence, prefecture, administrative headquarters, and Casa Pionierilor — before becoming a museum in 1974. In 1909 an upper floor and a monumental oak staircase were added, the latter preserved to this day. The museum was established on the initiative of and through donations from sculptor Ion Irimescu (27 February 1903, Arghira, Preutești – 29 October 2005, Fălticeni), a professor and member of the Romanian Academy. It initially functioned as a section of the Fălticeni city museum, becoming an independent museum in 1991. The permanent collection comprises over 300 sculptures in bronze, marble, wood, terracotta, plaster and plasticine, and approximately 1,000 drawings — portraits, compositions and monument designs — covering the artist's entire career, from his debut in 1920 to works created after the age of 90. Irimescu's favourite themes are maternity, music, mythology and the human being as a model in the universe. A well-known anecdote about the artist: in the presence of Nicolae Ceaușescu, and lacking the bronze needed for a bust of Mihail Sadoveanu, Irimescu received from the dictator the statue of Stalin that had been removed from its plinth in a public square — and so Stalin became Mihail Sadoveanu once more. The museum also includes the artist's personal library of approximately 1,500 volumes. The building features ten rooms arranged thematically and chronologically, with an impressive interior monumental staircase. It is accessed from the centre of Fălticeni, approximately 40 km from Suceava via DN2/E85.