418GALLERY was founded in Bucharest in 2008. Dr. Joana Grevers, an art historian of Romanian origin, and Guy K. Williamson, an American businessperson and art collector, established the gallery.

Since 2017, the gallery has headquarters in Cetate and became the first rural gallery in Romania. The generous architectural space at Cetate, a former agricultural family estate from the second half of the 19th century, is an unusual environment and an ideal match for young cutting-edge artists working on a large scale. Here, they can develop skills, construct unrestricted installations, and create art. Stefan Radu Cretu’s magical kinetic works, Albert Kaan’s graceful installations, Cristian Raduta’s fabulous creatures, and his abstract works in concrete, to name a few, find their way and place in and around the former buildings of the estate. The surroundings are a source of inspiration for young artists, such as the upcoming painter Petrica Stefan, who started at Cetate to experiment with the new medium of land art.

However, since the beginning, the gallery has been dedicated to surveying the Romanian and Eastern European avant-garde of the sixties and seventies. These were a small number of artists who, behind the Iron Curtain, created abstract art when Socialist Realism was the imposed artistic direction. Romul Nutiu developed his form of Abstract Expressionism; Diet Sayler focused on geometrical abstraction and Minimal art; Vincentiu Grigorescu initially concentrated on geometrical abstraction, later on the materiality of the canvas.

The gallery considers Abstract Expressionism one of the most interesting and historically relevant artistic developments post-WWII. The Abstract Expressionist movement emerged at the peak of the Cold War and, against all odds, managed to reach and influence artists living in imposed seclusion in communist countries of Eastern Europe. Abstract Expressionism behind the Iron Curtain represents a highly relevant and startling artistic movement.

Therefore, in addition to Romanian artist Romul Nutiu, the gallery also includes Edo Murtic from Croatia and Andrej Jemec from Slovenia, who were already on this path in the late 50s.

Since 2008, 418 Gallery and the Joana Grevers Foundation have organized the Cetate Arts Danube Residency every summer, a workshop for Romanian and international artists. The workshops provide an excellent opportunity to reach out and create bonds with young artists from Romania and across Europe: Constantin Luser, Stefan Papco, Ignazio Mortellaro, Maggie Michael, Simon Iurino, Vikenti Komitski, Johannes Vogl, Sasha Auerbakh, and others.

The activities of the Gallery and the Foundation aim to provide a representative view of Romanian contemporary art in the larger context of Eastern European art, to rediscover the Romanian and Eastern European avant-garde of the second half of the 20th century, and to foster and develop new talents among the new generation of artists from Romania in dialogue with artists from other parts of Europe.

Since 2017, we have had a branch office in Munich, where most of our work is stored and can be viewed. At regular intervals, we held private views of the representative works of selected artists.