Vinko Grdan
Still Life, 1939
oil on canvas
54 x 72,8 cm
MG-1606

Vinko Grdan (1900-1980) was a Croatian painter who studied under professor Ljubo Babić at the Academy of Arts in Zagreb and with his fellow colleagues O. Postružnik, Đ. Tijak, L. Junak and I. Tabaković and others founded the Earth Group (grupa Zemlja). He went to Paris (1924–1926), exhibited his works at the Salon d’Automne and the Salon des Indépendants (1925) as well as at the Earth Group exhibits in Zagreb (1929, 1931) and Paris (1931).
When he returned from Paris he started to work as an illustration instructor in Užice in 1928 but he moved to Belgrade in 1934 where he started working as a professor at the Academy of Applied Arts. He remained at that position from 1948 to 1959 when he became the rector until 1965.
His work ‘Still Life’ from 1939 represents a development towards a more intimate and coloristic painting which was different from the art of Earth Group which used social themes and a specific, nationalist approach and love for folklore and heritage. During the 1930s he started making art in a newer realistic style, using wide brush strokes, geometrization, reduction of the form and a contrasting palette.
What can be seen in his work ‘Still Life’ is a softening of the composition using gentle and soft strokes, reducing the shapes and using a muted palette of grey and brown colors. The composition depicts a bottle, a cut watermelon and two pears set on a table.

Text: Stella Baki, curator / museum educator at the National Museum of Modern Art Zagreb
Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb