From November 4th until November 29th, 2026, the National Museum of Modern Art presents the exhibition 50 Years INA Fine Arts Award at the Josip Račić Gallery. Conceived by Branko Franceschi, director of the National Museum of Modern Art, the group exhibition marks the fiftieth anniversary of the first edition of the INA Fine Arts Award in 1976, organized by INA and Modern Gallery. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue in Croatian and English with a text by Branko Franceschi and Luciana Fuks, curator for museum documentation. The graphic design of the catalogue is signed by Ana Zubić.
The INA Awards were held from 1975 to 1979 and included art, music and literature which alternated annually and were chosen through a competition and a jury. The initiative for the award was conceived at INA, and for the art segment the cooperation was established with the team of the then Modern Gallery, led by director Željko Grum and curators Mladenka Šolman and Darko Schneider while the financial framework with the prize and redemption fund was provided by INA.
Neo-Avant-Garde artists were affirmed and awarded, and the expert team that collaborated with the leading art critics of the time conceived the exhibition as a respectable and comprehensive overview of art production, and the then Modern Gallery, freed from the constraints of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, proved to be the encompassing institution of the totality of the living production of visual art.
(...) Viewed from today’s perspective, the INA Fine Arts Award is noteworthy as an ambitious manifestation of what is commonly known as corporate sponsorship, understood here as the direct funding of artistic production and presentation by a major economic enterprise operating within a socijalist economy. In the capitalist societies of Western democracies, sponsorship of the cultural sector is linked exclusively to marketing, the development of a corporate image and investment in an art portfolio. In socialist society, by contrast, such initiatives were seen as an expression of social responsibility, intended to foster cultural production and systematically enrich the workplace with works of art, thereby creating a more humane and stimulating working environment. - Branko Franceschi, from the text in the exhibition catalogue
Artists: Belizar Bahorić, Biserka Baretić, Boris Demur, Josip Diminić, Joško Eterović, Ivo Friščić, Nina Ivančić, Ksenija Kantoci, Zlatko Kauzlarić – Atač, Julije Knifer, Živa Kraus, Ferdinand Kulmer, Rudolf Labaš, Ordan Petlevski, Ante Rašić, Ivo Šebalj, Marija Ujević-Galetović
The exhibition has been made possible with financial support from the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia and the City Office for Culture and Civil Society of the City of Zagreb.
Reproductions (from left to right): Ferdinand Kulmer, Orange, Blue, Black, calligraphy, 1976, mixed media on canvas, 125 x 162 cm, inv. no. MG-3480; Marija Ujević-Galetović, Antun Gustav Matoš, 1979 bronze, 33 x 18 x 22 cm, inv. no. MG-4052; Julije Knifer, Meander, 1978, acrylic on canvas, 190 x 130 cm, inv. no. MG-4002/ Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb