Milena Lah
(1920 – 2003)
In Honour of Our Lady of Laurana, 1968
casting, bronze
64 x 40 x 40 cm
MG-6703

Milena Lah obtained a degree in sculpture from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1949 and worked as an associate in sculptor Vanja Radauš’s master workshop until 1950. Between 1951 and 1955, she continued her sculptural training in Rome, Florence, Milan and Paris. She participated in many prestigious international sculpture symposia as an established artist.
Early on, Lah created realistic sculptures, after which she aspired to synthesise form and the symbolic expressiveness of material. Inspired by Croatian art and literature, in her oeuvre she looked to combine traditional forms with contemporary sculptural ideas. She paid special attention to the figures of women and children. In her later series, centring mostly on mythological themes, she combined geometric and figural elements. Having used almost all sculpture techniques and materials, she created a prolific oeuvre which, thanks to the purity of elementary forms, metaphors, associations and interactivity, is rightly considered to be one of the most authentic oeuvres in the history of Croatian sculpture.
The work dedicated to Our Lady of Laurana is modelled as an abstract portrait head in a three-partite circular-audible form with expanding plate-like round discs (reminiscent of the Renaissance-styled hair). The neck is long, with a wide base and an oval-shaped bottom. The highly polished golden surface lustre furnishes the work with sublime sacral dignity.

Text: Tatijana Gareljić, museum consultant of the National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb

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