Marijan Detoni
Print Portfolio "People from Seine" / Sheet 14, 1934
linocut, paper
30 x 25 cm (46 x 33 cm)
MG-6728-14

Marijan Detoni (1905-1981) graduated at the Academy of Arts in Zagreb in 1928 under Ljubo Babić, further specializing in graphic art under Tomislav Krizman. He was a professor at the Academy of Arts in Zagreb and is considered one of the most important graphic artists of his time.
He was a member of Earth Group and he was one of the most famous artists creating socially charged art. During his stay in Paris during the 1930s he depicted the decrepit state of the metropolis, especially the lives of the poor living near the Seine. Using simple compositions and colors he portrayed the poor, homeless, hungry and the jobless. The print portfolio “People from Seine” was published in 1934 and contains 30 linocut sheets. Sheet 14 depicts a hunger strike in Paris in 1933 from fired miners from the north of France, holding transparents demanding employment and food.
The composition of the work is defined by the bridge looming over the bodies of the strikers freezing in thin coats with haggard faces that resemble faces of dead men or skeletons with crudely indicated cheekbones, hollow sockets for eyes and slashes for mouths.

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