Bruno Bulić
Vase with Flowers, 1939
oil on canvas
73,5 x 54 cm
MG-1503

Bruno Bulić (1903-1990) was a Croatian painter most known for his paintings of Franciscan churches from his later period but also his still lifes and portraits from the earlier period. Even though he had a very fertile artistic production, he only had two individual exhibitions in his lifetime with many group ones.
His first lessons in drawing came from the famous sculptor Ivan Rendić, awakening in him an appreciation for art and drawing which grew with his many visits to the Revoltella Museum. He continued his studies at the Scuola Industriale (1920-1924) in his hometown Trieste and Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice (1924-1927).
He left Venice after losing his hearing in street demonstrations and he continued his studies in the Academy of Arts in Zagreb under professor V. Becić (1927-1931). He worked as a curator of the Old Masters’ fresco paintings collection at the Glyptotek of the Yugoslavian Academy of Science and Arts (JAZU) from 1947 after which he worked in the restoration department of the JAZU from 1954 to 1968.
His still lifes like ‘Vase with Flowers’ have a note of originality in them in the arrangement of the flowers and other elements in the painting. They are filled with a specific intimacy and haven’t been painted from a model. In ‘Vase with Flowers’ the vases are in the shape of a fish, placed between dominoes on a stool. The unusual contrast of the colorful vases and the more monochrome elements make a charming image of an everyday scene - freshly picked flowers set in a home.
Bulić’s characteristics in paintings are fixed three dimensional shapes, simple compositions, modulation and tonal shift of colors.

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