Emil Bacila (1926, Blaj – 1990, Cluj-Napoca) was a painter, graphic designer, decorating artist and professor at the “Ion Andreescu” Art Institute in Cluj-Napoca. His artistic career blends more or less with the post-war history of this “talent accelerator” that was the new institution of higher artistic education created in Cluj Napoca in 1948. He belonged to the first generation of students (1948 – 1953), evolving prodigiously from the position of professor assistant (1953), professor, head of department, dean, to rector in 1990. His name is linked to the struggle of an entire generation of artists who created the prestige of a school for 50 years: from the first generation of “teachers” recruited from the bourgeois ambience of Romanian interwar art (Aurel Ciupe, Kos András, Kovács Zoltán, Romul Ladea, Petru Abrudan, Abodi Nagy Béla, Andrássy Zoltán, Bene Jószef, Teodor Harşia, Miklóssy Gábor, etc.), to the generation of proven artists, evolving under the oppression of the socialist model (Theodor Botiş, Ghiorghi Apostu, Paul Sima, Vasile Crişan, Liviu Florean, Erdős Tibor, Veress Pál, Feszt Ladislau, Leonid Elaş, Ana Lupaş, Mircea Spătaru, Deák Ferenc, etc.) and to the new generation that debuted tempestuously after 1990 (Adrian Ghenie, Mircea Suciu, Victor Man, Marius Bercea, George Savu, etc.) under the so-called honorable logo of the new “School in Cluj” and their profoundly inspiring models (Ana Lupas, Mircea Spataru, Corneliu Brudaşcu, Nicolae Maniu, Ioan Sbârciu, Ioachim Nica, Cornel Ailincăi , Florin Maxa, Ioan Horvath Bugnariu, Radu Solovastru, Ioan Rusu, Alexandru Păsat, Raveca Ana Brânzăş, Deák Beke Éva, etc.)   (Vasile Radu)