Eugen Schileru (pen name of Eugen Schiller; September 13, 1916–August 10, 1968) was a Romanian art and literary critic, essayist and translator.

Born in

Brăila Brăila (, also , ) is a city in Muntenia, eastern Romania, a port on the Danube and the capital of Brăila County. The ''Sud-Est'' Regional Development Agency is located in Brăila. According to the 2011 Romanian census there were 180,302 peo ...

, his parents were Henri Schiller, an

otorhinolaryngologist Otorhinolaryngology ( , abbreviated ORL and also known as otolaryngology, otolaryngology–head and neck surgery (ORL–H&N or OHNS), or ear, nose, and throat (ENT)) is a surgical subspeciality within medicine that deals with the surgical a ...

, and his wife Maria (''née'' Demetrescu); his father was Jewish and his mother ethnic Romanian. He attended Nicolae Bălcescu High School in his native city from 1930 to 1934, followed by the literature and philosophy faculty of the University of Bucharest from 1934 to 1938. Schileru graduated with a degree in aesthetics; his thesis dealt with art and pathological manifestations. One of his professors was

George Oprescu George Oprescu (27 November 1881 – 13 August 1969) was a Romanian historian, art critic and collector. Born into a poor family, he developed a taste for the fine arts early in life, as well as for the French language, which he taught into his fo ...

. In 1939, he received a law degree. Under the pen name Adrian Schileru, he published in the Marxist review ''Era nouă'' in 1936. In 1938, he received a vacation scholarship from the French Institute of Advanced Studies in Romania; also that year, he graduated from a pedagogical institute. From 1948 to 1951, he directed the Romanian Academy's library. In 1949, he became a professor of aesthetics at

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...

's Nicolae Grigorescu Fine Arts Institute, rising to chairman of the art history department in 1968. Schileru's writings include articles in literary and specialty magazines; short works on fine arts (exhibition catalogues, art columns, aesthetic commentaries, notes about impressionism, classical and contemporary painting); film reviews; theoretical works about art; and commentaries partly collected in ''Rembrandt'' (1966), ''Ion Sima'' (1968), ''Ion Irimescu'' (1969), ''Impresionismul'' (1969), ''Scrisoarea de dragoste'' (1971) and ''Preludii critice'' (1975). He prefaced translations from

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, comte de Saint-Exupéry, simply known as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (, , ; 29 June 1900 – 31 July 1944), was a French writer, poet, aristocrat, journalist and pioneering aviator. He became a laureate of s ...

Thomas Mann Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novella ...

Herman Melville Herman Melville ( born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are ''Moby-Dick'' (1851); ''Typee'' (1846), a r ...

Alberto Moravia Alberto Moravia ( , ; born Alberto Pincherle ; 28 November 1907 – 26 September 1990) was an Italian novelist and journalist. His novels explored matters of modern sexuality, social alienation and existentialism. Moravia is best known for his de ...

and

Cesare Pavese Cesare Pavese ( , ; 9 September 1908 – 27 August 1950) was an Italian novelist, poet, short story writer, translator, literary critic, and essayist. He is often referred to as one of the most influential Italian writers of his time. Early lif ...

, while himself translating, alone or in collaboration, Sinclair Lewis, James Hilton, Horace McCoy, Giovanni Germanetto, André Ribard,

Claude Lévi-Strauss Claude Lévi-Strauss (, ; 28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair of Social Anth ...

Albert Maltz Albert Maltz (; October 28, 1908 – April 26, 1985) was an American playwright, fiction writer and screenwriter. He was one of the Hollywood Ten who were jailed in 1950 for their 1947 refusal to testify before the US Congress about their involv ...

, Richard Sasuly and Tirso de Molina.Aurel Sasu (ed.), ''Dicționarul biografic al literaturii române'', vol. II, p. 545-46. Pitești: Editura Paralela 45, 2004. He was married to Simona Schileru (1916–1964). His daughter Micaela published a memoir of her father in 2016, the centenary of his birth.

Andrei Pleșu Andrei Gabriel Pleșu (; born 23 August 1948) is a Romanian philosopher, essayist, journalist, literary and art critic. He has been intermittently involved in politics, having been appointed Minister of Culture (1989–91), Minister of Foreign A ...

“Un euforic riguros: Eugen Schileru”
in ''

Dilema veche ''Dilema veche'' (English: "Old Dilemma") is a Romanian weekly magazine that covers culture, social topics, and politics. It was founded in 2004 as the successor to the magazine ''Dilema'', which was founded in 1993. Both magazines were founded by ...

'' nr. 666/24-30 November 2016

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schileru, Eugen 1916 births 1968 deaths People from Brăila Romanian people of Jewish descent University of Bucharest alumni Bucharest National University of Arts faculty Romanian art critics Romanian film critics Romanian translators Romanian librarians 20th-century translators Burials at Bellu Cemetery