Nikola Koydl
(1939 – 2020)
Portal (Hommage à Carlo Scarpa), 2009
polyester, oil, varnish; 62 x 255 x 4.5 cm
MG-7356

Painter, graphic artist and sculptor Nikola Koydl graduated in the class of Đuro Tiljak and then worked as an associate in Krsto Hegedušić’s Master Workshop and a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. He was the recipient of the Vladimir Nazor Award in 2009, when he also represented Croatia at the Venice Biennale (with Zoltan Novak and Matko Vekić). Koydl was a much-travelled man, and the abstract colourful forms in his oeuvre represent polished reductions of numerous landscapes, spaces and objects he experienced first-hand, featuring strange forms, elegant and curved lines and hermetic pictography. He continued to explore the powerful effects of colour by constructing relief paintings that penetrate into the third dimension, and by creating elegant painting objects unparalleled in Croatian art.
The work Portal consists of two parallel lines with a stylised portal shape between them in the middle, while the entire composition is painted in bright shades of blue and pink with yellow dotted accents on the upper parallel. It is a refined and stylised volume with protrusions into space that dynamize the associative property of the object. The linear sculpture, subtitled Hommage à Carlo Scarpa, is dedicated to the great Italian architect with whom Koydl shared compatible artistic premises, such as creating original highly stylised works inspired by the landscapes and art of the Far East.

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