Đuro Tiljak
Under the Bridge, s. a.
watercolor on paper
35,2 x 44,1 cm (50 x 70 cm)
MG-3558

Đuro Tiljak (1895– 1965) attended the Academy of Arts in Moscow in 1919 under Vasily Kandinsky and graduated in 1923 under Ljubo Babić in Zagreb. His first introduction to French Post-Impressionists in the Tretyakov Gallery was the reason he continued his studies in Paris during 1928.
After his studies in Paris he started exhibiting with Earth Group (1930-1933), creating socially engaged artworks. In 1942 he joined the Partisans and created posters and newspapers for the movement. Tiljak’s expressive drawings were created in the south of Italy, documenting the suffering of displaced civilians. He taught at the Academy of Arts in Zagreb from 1945.
His paintings varied from early watercolors, paintings of magical realism during the 1930s, dramatic wartime depictions to later poetic landscapes made in watercolor. The unfinished look of the watercolor “Under the Bridge” depicts an everyday scene broken down to geometric shapes tonally defined with color. In the foreground boats on the river are depicted in cold blue and green tones while the red color of the bridge breaks the simplicity of the background.

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