Beauty and Controversy: The Story of the Tyler Collection of Romanian Art

We are delighted to host the launch of Despite Ceaușescu: A Collection of Romanian Art, an art book by Frances Tyler that brings together works by leading Romanian artists of the 1970s and 1980s. The volume documents a key segment of the Geoffrey and Frances Tyler Collection of Romanian Art, now housed at the University of Tasmania—one of the largest and most significant collections of Romanian art outside the country.

Assembled over three decades by Geoffrey Tyler, a former IMF official who worked in Europe during Romania’s communist period, the collection comprises an impressive range of paintings, sculptures, and ceramics. It stands as a vivid testimony to both the creative vitality and the moral ambiguities of artistic life under Ceaușescu’s repressive regime.

The event will feature a panel discussion with Frances Tyler, Caterina Preda (Professor at the Department of Political Science, University of Bucharest), and Rachael Rose (Curator, Fine Art Collections at the University of Tasmania). The conversation will explore the complex context in which the collection emerged, as well as the controversies and revelations that have surfaced since the opening of the Securitate Archives.

A selection of works from the collection will also be on view, offering audiences a rare opportunity to discover some of the most compelling achievements of Romanian art from that era.