"Satyr and Nymph," Nudes in Paradise, Art Deco Painting

One of the most sensual and brilliant Art Deco paintings in the French manner that we have ever offered, this idyllic scene of Satyr and Nymph, lounging under a fruited tree with lush fields in the distance, was painted by Gheorghe Labin in 1932. Labin was one of Romania's avant-garde artists in the 1920s and 1930s, and clearly he trained in Paris, because the lush scene, brilliant palette, and confident brush strokes indicate an intimate familiarity with the leading painters associated with what we now call Art Deco. This painting was entered into the Salon Bucarest in 1932, in a period when Labin exhibited with Mattis Teutsch, the de facto leader of Romania's modern painters, together with Corneliu Baba, Alexandru Ciucurencu, Lucia Bălăcescu–Demetriade, Michaela Eleutheriade, Lucian Grigorescu, Gheorghe Labin, Alexandru Rhoebus, Margareta Sterian, Mac Constantinescu and Borgo Prund. The painting is oil on canvas, and is signed in the lower right. The original 1932 exhibition label remains on the reverse.