Tag: 1913.

Petar Dobrović, Worker (Self-Portrait?), 1913

Petar Dobrović
Worker (Self-Portrait?), 1913
oil on canvas
99.8 x 79.7 cm
MG-1469

Petar Dobrović (1890–1942) studied painting in Budapest from 1909 to 1911, where he has shown his works for the first time at the Museum of Fine Arts in 1911. In his native Pécs, he socialised with writer Miroslav Krleža. He spent the period from 1912 to 1914 in Paris, when he created a series of drawings influenced by Cézanne and Cubism. In 1926 in Belgrade, he was one of the founding members of the Form (Oblik in Croatian) Art Group, and he also participated in the founding of the Belgrade Academy of Fine Arts, where he worked as a professor since 1937. His summers spent on the island of Hvar and in Dubrovnik, where he created a series of landscapes and portraits in oil and watercolour techniques are significant. Dobrović’s painting was particularly marked by the colouristic realism of the 1930s.
Dobrović painted the half-length portrait of a young man in a rather theatrical, almost expressionist manner. The pose and energetic gesture of the character’s raised, outstretched arms, bent at the elbows, contribute to the expressive tension of the picture. The portrait of the Worker (Self-Portrait?) is rendered in a dark register of brown and grey hues, with cubic, broken forms as an echo of the historical avant-gardes, still topical in 1913 when the painting was created. In addition to the penetrating gaze, aimed directly at the observer, the pronounced drama of the composition is achieved by lighting, with a strong contrast between light and dark and diagonal penetrations in the scheme of the composition. The silhouette of the person portrayed is additionally highlighted with a sort of ‘illuminated’ outline that encircles it and emerges from the surrounding darkness of the background.

Text: Ivana Rončević Elezović, Museum Counselor at the National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb, 2023
Foto: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb, 2023

Ferdo Ćus, A Head of a Boy, 1913

Ferdo Ćus
(1891-1914)
A Head of a Boy, 1913
wood
MG-1331

Ferdo Ćus graduated in sculpture from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1910 (mentored by Robert Frangeš-Mihanović and Rudolf Valdec). In 1913 and 1914, he continued his studies at the woodcarving school in St. Christina in Tyrol, Austria. Recognised as a talented sculptor while still a student, in 1910 he sculpted bronze statues of boys on turtles for the fountain in Petrinja, and in 1911 he modelled independently the groups of owls mounted on the roof of the building that housed the University Library in Zagreb, today the Croatian State Archives.
Due to his early death, Ćus’s oeuvre is not extensive. Nevertheless, it reflects his strong artistic personality as realised in his wooden sculptures of saints, human figures and animalistic motifs of thematic diversity and sensibility.
Ćus’s children’s portraits, such as A Head of a Boy (1913), are modelled softly within their closed volume. Curiously, the surfaces of the boy’s hair, smooth with solid edges, are modelled in the manner of Facet Cubism.

Text: Tatijana Gareljić, 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

Maksimilijan Vanka, An Old Woman with a Dutch Hat, 1913

Maksimilijan Vanka
An Old Woman with a Dutch Hat, 1913
oil on hardboard
50×50 cm
MG-4304

Maksimilijan Vanka (1889-1962) studied painting in Zagreb with painter Bela Čikoš Sesija and in Brussels. He was a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb until 1934, after which he moved to the United States. He was an important member of the Group of Four, together with painters Ljubo Babić, Vladimir Becić and Jerolim Miše from 1926 to 1929, when the Group of Four transformed into the famous Group of Three after Vanka left. He became a member of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts in 1929. Large-format compositions depicting folklore and religious themes, colourful landscapes in watercolour, portraits and self-portraits comprise a significant portion of his oeuvre. He also did fresco painting and sculpture. Vanka’s designs for the decorations and costumes of Krešimir Baranović’s ballet Licitar Heart are particularly interesting.
Vanka painted his An Old Woman with a Dutch Hat in 1913 at the age of 24. Vanka’s entire oeuvre is known for its distinctive Realism, which was often colourist in nature. Although the colours in which he painted the old woman are more restrained, there are striking yellow highlights present on her face. The deformities of the old woman’s facial features, her sagging shoulders, penetrating gaze and expression of worry and fear, coupled with Vanka’s accentuated brushstrokes, contribute to the expressionist quality of the composition. The motif of the Dutch hat and Vanka’s placement of the portrayed bust indoors are a deliberate reference to the great tradition of modern Dutch painting.

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

Ferdo Kovačević, Before the Storm, 1913

Ferdo Kovačević
Before the Storm, 1913
oil on canvas 80.6 x 114.6 cm
MG-470

After having graduated from the School of Crafts in Zagreb, Ferdo Kovačević (1870 –1927) moved to Vienna where he studied painting at the Karl Karger School of Arts and Crafts. He was one of the founders of the Society of Croatian Artists in 1897 and he exhibited at the Croatian Salon in 1898. He participated in Izidor Kršnjavi’s program of decorating the Department of Religious Affairs and Education and the then building of National and University Library (today the Croatian State Archives) with vedute of Croatian cities on the supraporte (overdoors). He has worked as a professor at the School of Crafts in Zagreb since 1905, and then at the Academy since 1917. He was a corresponding member of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts (JAZU). Since 1894, he has exhibited with the circle around Bukovac, and he has also participated in exhibitions of the Lada Association of South Slav Artists and the Croatian Art Society.

In his early works, Kovačević adheres to the symbolist expression, however after a crucial meeting with Vlaho Bukovac he changed direction towards pleinairisme and realism. His specificity as a painter in Croatian art is his selection of the continental Sava landscape as a theme, which he paints in countless variations. In the painting Before the Storm from 1913, he uses an expressive deep tonal colourway and the compositional means of diagonal white posts on the surface of the water from the lower left corner towards the centre of the painting, occupied by a bush on the edge of the river bank, thus inviting the observer into the drama of the sky before the storm.

Text: Ivana Rončević Elezović, Museum advisor of the National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Translated by: Robertina Tomić
Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb

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