The exhibition “Stories from My Garden” by the Brač artist Tino Vuković opened on 9 July at the Josip Račić Gallery. Following an introductory address by Branko Franceschi, director of the National Museum of Modern Art, curator Marta Radman presented the artist’s eponymous cycle, noting that it emerges from an intimate, everyday space, and that the garden referred to in the title is neither simply a motif drawn from the artist’s immediate surroundings, nor a decorative depiction of island nature. Rather, it is a place that the artist knows through labour, care, and quiet reflection, a space that is cultivated, maintained, transformed, and never entirely complete. In this respect, it bears a close resemblance to painting. Both garden and painting develop incrementally, through time, measured attention and care, but also through an acceptance of that which cannot be wholly anticipated.
Eleven selected mixed-media works from Vuković’s cycle, first presented in 2025 at the Museum of Fine Arts in Split, and later at the AK Gallery in Koprivnica, are on view for Zagreb audiences until 30 August.
The exhibition at the Josip Račić Gallery has been organised with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia and the Zagreb City Office for Culture and Civil Society. It is accompanied by a catalogue designed by Ana Zubić, published in both Croatian and English, containing an essay by Marta Radman, curator of the NMMA’s fine art collection from 1990 to the present.

Translated by Robertina Tomić
Photo Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb