CRITICAL REVIEW

          As a significant representative of the older generation of sculptors, trained in Cornel Medrea’s class, Lelia Zuaf David has become famous in Romanian art after World War II through an artistic work dedicated especially to man, because mankind, in its different instances, represents the focus point of the sculptress. Numerous public forum monuments of Lelia Zuaf David, realized in stone and bronze, are also currently personalizing some urban spaces in important Romanian towns: Bucharest, Constanta, Iasi etc. Until 1972, when she chose to live in Israel, the artist approached moderately the realist style, ideologically imposed, but she distanced herself relatively quickly, finding her personal expression in an expressionist sculpture. The portraits of historical and cultural personalities, just like the ensembles dedicated to some damaging events in Jewish history are realised with a profound feeling of attachment and compassion for human condition. Being a sculptress of an accentuated sensitivity, but having a palpable inner strength, Lelia Zuav David conducted her form to stylized, fragile expressions, impetuous in conquering space. Undisputable, in sculpture she realizes an interesting synthesis between avant-garde art, with which she became familiarized in the first years of study with M.H. Maxy, and the subsequent realism, in the years of study in the Fine Arts Academy.

Luiza Barcan (2014)