Valeriu Semenescu (b. 1949) is a university professor and holds a PhD at the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca, having graduated from the glass department of the same institution. In Romania, his works have formed part of exhibitions in museums and galleries in Cluj-Napoca, Timișoara, Iași, and Bucharest. Internationally, his works have been exhibited in Germany, Switzerland, Japan, and the USA. In 2002 he participated in glass symposia in Bistrița, Romania and Bárdibuck. Among awards he has received are those from the Youth Biennale in Cluj-Napoca (1980) and the International Exhibition of Glass in Kanazawa, Japan (1998, 2001).
In his practice, glass takes on sculptural qualities and forms, but their meaning is closely linked to the reality of the glass itself. The Useful Portrait in the auction is close to those glass objects of the Renaissance and the Mannerist movement which challenged glassmakers to transform simple glasses into masterpieces of technical and artistic virtuosity, seemingly transceding the limitationsof this fragile material. Thus, Semenescu also left the stem of the glass as a plinth as a reference to the object's frustrated origin.
(Teodora Ungurean, Székely Sebestyén György)