Miroslav Kraljević
Požega, 1910
oil on canvas
53.2 × 43.7 cm
MG-2392

After attending school in Zagreb and Gospić, Miroslav Kraljević (1885–1913) enrolled to study law in Vienna, but soon abandoned his legal studies to pursue painting. In 1906–07, he attended the private school of the printmaker Moritz Heymann in Munich. In May 1907, he was admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, where he studied under Hugo von Habermann and associated with Josip Račić and Vladimir Becić, forming part of the so-called Munich Circle. After graduating, Kraljević returned to Požega in 1910, where he painted intensively until September 1911, when he moved to Paris. There, he enrolled at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, although he left shortly afterwards. In 1912, he held his first—and during his lifetime, only—solo exhibition at the Ulrich Salon in Zagreb. He died of tuberculosis in 1913.
This vertically oriented painting presents a realistic en plein air view of Požega, rendered in a predominantly silvery, northern quality of light. The lower two-thirds of the composition are occupied by the town’s architecture, with particular emphasis on its rooftops. The upper third depicts a silvery sky, through whose centre rises the ochre-coloured church tower, extending to the upper edge of the canvas. Seen from a bird’s-eye perspective, the painting is executed with bold, impasto brushstrokes that anticipate an Expressionist approach.

Text: Ivana Rončević Elezović, PhD, Museum Adviser at the National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb