Zlatko Gursky
First Snow, 1934
black-and-white photograph
42.5 x 29.5 cm
MG-6904

Zlatko Gursky (Karlovac, 1911 – Zagreb, 2002) was both a publicist and an art photographer. After completing his studies at the Faculty of Medicine in Zagreb in 1939, he played a key role in organising healthcare services in the Karlovac region until 1950, while also delivering popular science and educational lectures on health and hygiene. In 1961, he travelled to Germany to specialise in medical photography. From 1950 until his retirement in 1966, he led the Laboratory for Medical Photodocumentation at the Surgical Clinic of Zagreb’s Faculty of Medicine. Alongside his medical work, Gursky pursued art photography, and his drawings and photographs illustrated numerous medical textbooks and articles.
Gursky’s First Snow (1934) captures the quiet freshness of a winter morning through a delicate interplay of light and shadow. The photograph conveys the serene stillness of the season’s first snowfall, with the snow’s pristine whiteness set against the muted greys of a background building and a lone figure pushing a cart along the street’s centre. The horizontal perspective and careful compositional rhythm reflect Gursky’s sensitivity to the aesthetic nuances of everyday life. First Snow intertwines the poetry of ordinary interwar daily life with Gursky’s contemplative approach to both art and documentary photography.

Text: Lovre Mrduljaš © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Photo: Zlatko Gursky © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb