Tulcea Art Museum

The Art Museum is at 2 Grigore Antipa Street, in the centre of Tulcea, a short walk from the Danube promenade. It is part of the North Dobruja Cultural Heritage Museum Complex of the Gavrilă Simion Eco-Museum Research Institute of Tulcea (ICEM). The building was erected between 1863 and 1865 as the Administrative Palace of the Sanjak of Tulcea, also known as the Pasha's Residence. After Dobruja returned to Romania in 1878, it became the seat of the Tulcea County Prefecture, with the court on the ground floor. Between 1950 and 1970 it housed the District People's Council, and on 23 August 1982 it became the Art Museum. The building was recently restored through a Tulcea County Council project. The permanent exhibition, "Arts and Influences in Dobruja", shows painting, sculpture, 18th and 19th century icons and decorative art. The holdings exceed 7,000 works in seven collections: modern and contemporary painting, modern and contemporary sculpture, icons, graphic art, engraving plates, Oriental art and decorative art. The painting collection includes works by Theodor Aman, Nicolae Grigorescu, Gheorghe Petrașcu, Theodor Pallady, Nicolae Tonitza, Ștefan Dimitrescu, Francisc Șirato, Iosif Iser, Camil Ressu, Ion Țuculescu, Alexandru Ciucurencu and Corneliu Baba; the collection's strongest point is the avant-garde period, with 14 works signed by Victor Brauner. A large part of the collections has the Danube Delta as its theme: the collection began in the 1940s with paintings by the local artist Geo Cardaș, and today numbers over 72 paintings and over 200 graphic works inspired by the Delta. The building is a historic monument of national importance, "Former Pasha's Palace of Tulcea, now the Art Museum", LMI code TL-II-m-A-05973. The museum is run by ICEM Tulcea. Did you know that, according to ICEM, the Tulcea Art Museum is the only institution in Romania that collects engraving plates? It holds linocut, woodcut and metal plates and lithographic stones, 542 pieces in all, and the museum also has its own printmaking workshop.