Category: Josip Račić Gallery

Georges Papazoff
From The Gueorgui Vassilev Collection
90 Years Later

Georges Papazoff
From the Gueorgui Vassilev Collection
90 Years Later

Curated by Maria Vassileva
May 6 – June 1, 2025

To mark the 90th anniversary of the exhibition of Bulgarian painter Georges Papazoff at the Modern Gallery (December 17, 1934 – January 4, 1935), which featured 57 works created between 1929 and 1934, the National Museum of Modern Art presents a selection of paintings from the Guergui Vassilev Collection at the Josip Račić Gallery. This exhibition also includes The Light Bearers, a work owned by the National Museum of Modern Art.

Croatian art critic Ivo Šrepel once described Papazoff as one of the most important and renowned European artists of the time:
"With the organization of Georges Papazoff's exhibition in Zagreb, the Croatian Art Society is presenting to the public one of the brightest representatives of the generation of idealistic painters from Western Europe. Papazoff’s powerful individuality continued to evolve and transform the Cubism of Picasso, Braque, Delaunay, Gris, and Léger, the Purism of Ozenfant and Jeanneret, the Dadaism of Picabia and Duchamp, as well as the Surrealism of Miró, Klee, and Hoerle.”

About the Artist
Georges (Georgi) Papazoff was born on February 2, 1894, in Yambol, Bulgaria, and passed away in 1972 in Vence, France. He lived in Prague, Vienna, Munich, and Berlin before settling in Paris in 1924. According to the Dictionary of Surrealism (1982) by writer and art historian Edouard Jaguer, “Papazoff is undoubtedly one of the forerunners of what we now call 'abstract surrealism' in the mid-1920s, alongside Miró, Ernst, Malkine, and Masson.”

Endowed with boundless imagination, Papazoff embarked on journeys through various stylistic directions and realms of consciousness. He embodied the spirit of discovery and experimentation that characterized the first half of the 20th century. A true exemplar of the universal artistic movements of the time, when borders were fluid and art served as a powerful unifying force, his oeuvre continues to transcend national boundaries and fosters a multilingual dialogue on authentic artistic values.

Reproductions:
Georges Papazoff, Composition – La Famille, 1925, oil on canvas, 116 x 89 cm / © From the Gueorgui Vassilev Collection
Georges Papazoff, Passenger Boats, 1931, oil on canvas, 116 x 89 cm / © From the Gueorgui Vassilev Collection
Georges Papazoff, The Light Bearers, 1929, oil on canvas, 162.2 x 129.8 cm / National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb, Inv. No. MG-1256 / Photo: Goran Vranić
© National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Cover Image: Georges Papazoff, The Fish, 1946, oil on canvas33 x 47 cm / Photo / © From the Gueorgui Vassilev Collection
Installation View Photo Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb

Milo Sakač
Nessuno Torna Indietro

The National Museum of Modern Art is presenting an exhibition of a recent series of paintings by Milo Sakač, created in mixed media on paper. Milo Sakač, a qualified architect, has been successfully exhibiting his work since the 1980s, both at home and abroad. The series titled Nessuno torna indietro, produced between 2023 and 2024, signifies a departure in style, execution, and materials from his previous easel painting work, moving towards a more sketchy and intuitive form of expression. This exhibition features a selection of 18 monumental achromatic compositions, characterised by their elongated format, which is dictated by the use of protective building paper as a surface. The series employs non-painting materials typically used in construction, serving as a tribute to the artist’s concurrent work in architecture. The exhibition is curated by Branko Franceschi.

" The exhibition of Milo Sakač’s monochrome paintings on paper at the Josip Račić Gallery represents his first significant exhibition since 2023, when a retrospective of his work that also included a new painting series was showcased at the University Gallery in Split. Artists such as Sakač, who are in their prime and full of vitality seldom realise, however subliminal it may be, that a retrospective exhibition serves as a symbolic landmark for both the public and themselves, indicating a potential conclusion to their previous career trajectory, creative pursuits, or sources of inspiration. Every retrospective is essentially a recapitulation of an artist’s existing body of work, after which genuine progress can only arise from a rebirth, a reinvention of oneself, an attempt, or better yet, a movement towards an entirely new and unexplored creative avenue that involves a sincere investigation of the medium and a redefinition of accumulated knowledge and artistic experience. As the curator of the aforementioned
retrospective, I observed this crucial step forward in Sakač’s consistently vibrant practice, evident in a series of paintings created using non-painting, construction acrylics and coatings on rolls of protective construction paper, which show a certain lack of ambition in terms of métier.. (from the Branko Franceschi's text)

Biography
Milo Sakač was born in 1963 in Čakovec, Croatia. He graduated from the Faculty of Architecture,University of Zagreb in 1988. He works as an architect and paints in parallel. In 2017/18 he opened a painting studio in Vienna, and during summer, he lives and works in Omiš where he has established a studio and a gallery. He is a member of the associations of visual artists: The group Q202 Leopoldstadt Wien, Produzentengalerie Wien, Hungarian visual artist Worldwide and HDLU Varaždin. Since 1988, he held numerous solo exhibitions and has participated in group exhibitions in Croatia, Austria and Hungary. In 2023, the University Gallery in Split presented a retrospective review of his oeuvre.

The exhibition remains open until 1 December 2024.
Images: works by Milo Sakač from the Nessuno torna indietro cycle, 2023 – 2024 / façade paint Takril, Jub brilliant interior paint, water-based acrylic varnishes, Drvofix glue, charcoal, acrylic paint Shminke on protective construction paper. dimensions variable
Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb