Petru Comarnescu (23 November 1905 â 27 November 1970) was a Romanian literary and art critic and translator.
Born in IaÃÂi into a family that was related to the metropolitan bishop , he studied law at the University of Bucharest (degree in 1928), philosophy and philology (degree in 1929) before going in 1931 on a two-year scholarship to the United States of America, where he received a PhD in aesthetics from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, with his thesis The Nature of Beauty and Its Relation to Goodness (published later in Romanian in 1946 as Kalokagathon).
Together with Mircea VulcÃÂnescu and Alexandru Christian Tell, he started the Criterion association and magazine in 1934. Before the Second World War, he published in several Romanian newspapers, for example AdevÃÂrul, AdevÃÂrul literar ÃÂi artistic, Azi, Stânga, Arta, Excelsior, Da ÃÂi nu, Ulisse and was an editor at Vremea (1931âÂÂ1936), Rampa (1933âÂÂ1934), Revista FundaÃÂiilor Regale (from its foundation to 1943). Between 1944 and 1949 he published in Bis, Agora, Timpul, Arcades, NaÃÂiunea, and Universul.
Between 1949 and 1960, he was not allowed to publish under his own name, due to political reasons. The only exceptions were monographies about painters or sculptors: Octav BÃÂncilà(1954), Abgar Baltazar (1956), ViaÃÂa ÃÂi opera lui Rembrandt van Rijn ("The Life And Work of Rembrandt") (1957), Nicolae Grigorescu (1959), ÃÂtefan Luchian (1960). Later, he would also write about other well-known Romanian visual artists, such as Gheorghe PetraÃÂcu, Theodor Pallady, Nicolae Tonitza, Francisc ÃÂirato, Ion ÃÂuculescu, sometimes even in English The Romanian and the Universal in BrâncuÃÂi's Work (1970).
Trying to avoid being marginalized, he compromised with the communist authorities, such as by joining the Romanian Workers' Party (Partidul Muncitoresc Român), later called the Romanian Communist Party (Partidul Comunist Român). In 2014 Comarnescu was found to have been an informant for the Securitate.
Alone or in cooperation with others, he translated from English or Russian works of D. H. Lawrence, Daniel Defoe, Sir Walter Scott, Mark Twain, Eugene OâÂÂNeill, J. B. Priestley, Howard Fast, Leo Tolstoi, Alexander Herzen, Alexander Gorchakov, Gleb Uspensky, Nikolay Chernyshevsky, Sasha Chorny, and Ilya Ehrenburg. He was critically acclaimed by his contemporaries, Camil Petrescu calling him the "leader" of their generation, Barbu Brezianu its "herald", and Mircea Eliade its "magus".
Comarnescu was married to Gina Manolescu-Strunga, the daughter of a liberal politician, but she had been in love with N. D. Cocea, a well-known writer and journalist, from the age of 17 (and by whom she became pregnant after her marriage). They divorced two years later. Comarnescu was also a homosexual.
He died at age 65 in Bucharest, and was buried at the VoroneÃÂ Monastery cemetery.