Ivan Tišov
(1870-1928)
Male Nude (at the Academie Julian), 1913
oil on canvas
72.5 x 50.2 cm
MG-6511

Ivan Tišov (1870–1928) graduated from the School of Crafts in Zagreb, where he later worked as a professor. He then studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna and the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. During 1913/14, Tišov also attended the Académie Julian in Paris. He painted primarily in the style of Academic Realism, with inclinations towards Pleinairism and Symbolism as was the spirit of the times. Among Tišov’s most significant public commissions are decorations of the “Golden Hall” at the Department of Religious Affairs and Education in Zagreb (1893–96), then the foyer of the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb (1905), the National and University Library (1914), and he also painted the interior of his own house in Zagreb.
Tišov’s painting oeuvre is rendered in the style of the skilful, technically solid Academic Realism. The same can be said of the Male Nude (at the Academie Julian) created in 1913. It is a tonal painting rendered in a dark gamut of brown hues with an interesting solution of depicting a full-length figure of the male nude from the back in three-quarter view, where the only line that emerges from the shadow and stretches in full height across the middle of the painting is the left side of the man’s body.

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

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