The Girl at the seaside statue is one the historical monuments of the county of Constanța. This has been executed by the sculptor Cornel Medrea in the year 1691.
Corneliu Virgiliu Medrea (born on the 8th of March 1888, Miercurea Sibiului – deceased on the 25th of July 1964, Bucharest) was a Romanian sculptor and sculpture professor, correspondent member of the Romanian academy.
Cornel Medrea was born in 1888 in the commune Miercurea Sibiului, in a family native from the commune Galda de Jos. After the high school studies at Alba Iulia and at the School of Arts and Crafts from Zlatna, Medrea attends the School of Decorative Art from Budapest (between 1909 – 1912), where he worked with the sculptor György Zala. Between the years 1912 – 1913, he carried on journeys in diverse European countries, visiting the museums of plastic arts.
Starting with 1914, he participates at the Official Saloons from Bucharest, at the expositions of the groups “The artistic youth”, “The Romanian art”, etc. He exhibits at the Biennale from Venice (in the years 1928, 1938, 1956 and 1958) and at many more other artistic manifestations from abroad.
Between the years 1939 – 1964 he was a sculpture professor at the Academy of Beaux – Arts from Bucharest (namely the Institute “Nicolae Grigorescu”). In the year 1955 he was chose as correspondent member of the Romanian Academy.
Cornel Medrea practiced all the genres of the sculptures, cultivating full, robust shapes, having as an ideal the simplicity of the reality. The portrays, the series of maternities, the historical evocation (Dragoș Vodă and the Urus), the allegoric manifestations (Atlas, Fishermen, Victory) converge towards the manifestation of a plenitude, of an optimism based upon the manifestation of the human image.
Among the most important works which he realized along the times it is noticed Dragoș Vodă and the Urus, the Relief from the Mausoleum from Mărășești, Gheoghe Lazăr from Avrig.
In 1921, the General Direction of Arts from the Ministry of Cults and Arts advanced charts with its clerks, proposed for the decoration on the occasion of the crowning projected for that year. On the 28th position there was enlisted the sculptor Corneliu Medrea with the proposal “officer of the Crown”. A part of the awards which he received regarded the Honor Diploma at the International Exhibit from Barcelona in the year 1929; the Grand award at the international exhibit from Paris from 1937, the State award in 1956, Artist of the people in 1957, the International award at the International exhibit from New York of 1939, for the relief “the Culture”.
