Gheorghe Bucur

Gheorghe Bucur spent the 1970s painting official portraits in a studio whose windows rattled from the trains rolling into Bucharest. His brush had to flatter the subject and satisfy the Party, yet his 1979 portrait of Elena Ceaușescu still feels like a costume he couldn’t quite fasten. Look for the way the blue dress sags at the shoulder—something he probably painted in one nervous weekend. Hunt down the signed print at the National Museum of Art of Romania; his signature, a tiny “B.G.”, is the only place he dared breathe.