Tag: 1909.

Oton Iveković, Woodcutters, 1909

Oton Iveković
Woodcutters, 1909
oil on canvas
120.5 x 120 cm
MG-373

Oton Iveković (1869 – 1939) studied painting in Zagreb under Ferdo Quiquerez, and later, in 1886, continued his education in Vienna with Christian Griepenkerl and August Eisenmenger. He further advanced his studies in Munich with Wilhelm von Lindenschmit and in Karlsruhe with Ferdinand von Keller. Iveković worked as a drawing teacher at Zagreb Realgymnasium, then at the School of Crafts from 1895, and later at the Academy from 1908. In the same year, he was elected president of the Lada Art Association. He travelled extensively throughout Croatia, Italy, Germany, and America, and during World War I, he served as a military painter. Alongside Menci Clement Crnčić, he is regarded as one of the most significant representatives of historical painting in Croatia, especially in the context of national inspiration. In his later years, he retired to Veliki Tabor in Croatian Zagorje.
In a square format, the centre of the painting features two woodcutters at work. The scene is set in a wintry forest environment, with snow and bare tree trunks. The colour palette is silvery-grey and white, with subtle hints of brown and deep burgundy. The realistic portrayal, reminiscent of Gustave Courbet (1819–1877), almost evokes a sense of social engagement. This distinctive quality, combined with the skill and mastery evident in his painting technique (particularly in the landscape), further reinforces the intriguing, thought-provoking and dynamic complexity of Iveković’s artistic expression, inviting new and bold interpretations that challenge established notions of his work.

Text: Marta Radman, curator of the National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Translated by: Marta Radman
Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb

Vladimir Becić, Still Life, 1909

Vladimir Becić
Still Life, 1909
oil on canvas
52×65 cm
MG-893

Vladimir Becić (1886-1954) attended Menci Clement Crnčić and Bela Čikoš Sesija’s private school of painting in Zagreb. After having dropped out of law school, in 1905 he travelled to Munich and attended Heinrich Knirr’s private school of painting. After having enrolled in 1906 in the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, he completed Ludwig von Herterich’s drawing course and enrolled in Hugo von Habermann’s painting classes, also attended by Josip Račić, Miroslav Kraljević and Oskar Herman (the Munich Circle) between 1905 and 1910. He moved to Paris in 1909 and enrolled in the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and drew for Le Rire, a French humour magazine. In 1910 he started moving about different towns, including Zagreb, Osijek, Belgrade and Bitola. He spent the period between 1916 and 1918 on the Macedonian Front as a war correspondent and painter for the French L’Illustration weekly. After World War I ended, he travelled to Blažuj near Sarajevo, where he set up a studio and painted landscapes, portraits and scenes from everyday life in the countryside in the manner of colourist Realism. During the 1920s, he briefly painted in the vein of Magical Realism as well, but after he joined the Group of Three in 1929, and in his portraits, landscapes and scenes from everyday life returned to colourist Realism. Becić taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb and was a member of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts.

Painted in the dimmed colours of the Munich School, Becić’s Still Life from 1909 is an excellent example of his application of the postulates of Cezannism. The shapes of the bread, fruit and jug displayed on a round table covered with a simple white tablecloth clearly indicate that Becić used the geometric objects of cylinder and sphere as their templates. The horizontal composition is simple and consists of three main parts: the lower half of the painting is occupied by a representation of the surface of the table, the upper half by a grey background, while the central part is where the motif of still life is arranged on the table.

Ivana Rončević Elezović, museum advisor of the National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Translated by: Ana Janković
Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb

Robert Auer, A Portrait of a Woman, 1909

Robert Auer
A Portrait of a Woman, 1909
oil on canvas
68,4×45,4 cm
MG-366

Robert Auer (1873-1952) studied painting at the School of Crafts in Zagreb, at the School of Arts and Crafts in Vienna and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, where he moved to in 1895 and exhibited at the Munich Art Nouveau exhibition in 1896. Together with his wife, painter Leopoldina Auer Schmidt, in 1987 he opened a private art school in Zagreb, which was attended by painters Tomislav Krizman and Joso Bužan. He participated in the founding of the Lada Croatian Artists’ Association and the Society of Croatian Artists. He taught at the School of Crafts in Zagreb from 1905 and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb from 1918. In terms of style, Auer painted in the vein of Munich-based Academicism and Jugendstil, and portraits and nudes in the spirit of idealised Realism, which were particularly popular amongst the bourgeois of his time.

Robert Auer’s A Portrait of a Woman from 1909 intrigues with its unusual choice of view of the bust of a young girl dressed in contemporary bourgeois clothes – she has her back turned to viewers. It’s a three-quarter view portrait with the girl gently bowing her head and lowering her gaze. The composition is impressive thanks to its condensed quality and deliberate simplicity. The colour accents of the large warm ochre field of the upper half of the painting, and the darker and lighter pink shades of the dress in the lower half frame the gentle skin tones of the girl’s face and the brown tones of her hair, which in terms of Auer’s exploration of colour composition, nearly reaches value in itself.

Text: Ivana Rončević Elezović, museum consultant of the National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Translated by: Ana Janković
Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb