Maksimilijan Vanka
Motif from the Zagreb Surroundings, 1916
pastel on paper
23.6 x 31.1 cm
MG-3328
Maksimilijan Vanka (1889–1962) studied painting in Zagreb under Bela Čikoš Sesija and later in Brussels. He served as a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb until 1934, after which he moved to the United States. He was a prominent member of the Group of Four, along with Ljubo Babić, Vladimir Becić, and Jerolim Miše, from 1926 to 1929. After Vanka’s departure, the group evolved into the renowned Group of Three. He became a member of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts (JAZU) in 1929.
Vanka’s oeuvre is marked by large-scale compositions with folkloric and religious themes, vivid watercolor landscapes, as well as portraits and self-portraits. He also worked in fresco painting and sculpture, and his costume and set designs for Krešimir Baranović’s ballet Licitar's heart. are particularly noteworthy.
In the pastel Motif from the Zagreb Surroundings from 1916, Vanka returns to one of his favorite sources of inspiration – the landscape and customs of the Hrvatsko Zagorje region. Characteristic of his style, the rolling hills with a village and a church perched atop a central hill, along with the dynamic sky occupying the upper quarter of the composition, are rendered with long, energetic strokes and vivid color. Deliberately avoiding subtle tonal gradations, Vanka creates a distinctive form of coloristic expressionism that fundamentally defines his painterly language.
Text by Ivana Rončević Elezović PhD, museum advisor at the National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb