Iosif Cova

Iosif Cova was born under the name Jozsef Königstein in former Austro-Hungary. He was an apprentice in a printing house in Oradea, where he learned the technique of lithography. The family then moved to Timișoara, where he produced political cartoons for local newspapers while simultaneously being further trained as a lithographer.

In the early 1930s, Cova participated in painting workshops and studied at the Academy of Arts in Budapest. He settled in București in about 1935 and worked for some time in advertising agencies. Cova continued to publish caricatures, especially of Nazi figures, in newspapers that did not sympathize with the German regime.

Eventually, hoping to realize his ideals, he joined the Communists only to realize much later his naiveté in this regard. Between 1950 and 1956, he taught drawing and poster design at the “lon Grigorescu” School of Art, while at the same time serving as secretary of the Graphic Design Section of the Union of Artists of Romania, and as vice president of the Association of Design.

Cova’s works were characterized by a strong sense of form. Despite the restrictions imposed by the corset of propaganda, he strove for an expressive, concisely composed pictorial poster with maximum visual impact. After 1965, he resumed painting of still lifes, landscapes, and portraits, and exhibited in solo shows, the last one taking place in 1983.

The gouache submitted in 1952 was titled We shall defend the Peace and was probably created as part of the anti-war propaganda in the early 1950s. Known is a lithograph by Iosif Cova showing the words We want peace.