Tag: 1939.

Ivo Lozica, Portrait of Frida Grgić, 1939

Ivo Lozica
(1910 – 1943)
Portrait of Frida Grgić, 1939
marble
52.5 x 42 x 36 cm
MG-2168

Ivo Lozica attended the Stonemasonry School in Korčula from 1923 to 1925, where sculptor Frano Kršinić took note of his talent and referred him to the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, where he studied sculpture from 1926 to 1930 (under R. Valdec and R. Frangeš-Mihanović), and in 1933 he completed I. Meštrović’s advanced course in sculpture. As a French government scholarship holder, he attended the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1933 to 1934. In 1935 he moved to Split and in 1938 he started teaching at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. He died prematurely in 1943, after having moved to his native Lumbarda on the Island of Korčula. He collaborated on Meštrović’s projects in Otavice (mausoleum) and Split (studio).
Drawing on the Mediterranean sculptural tradition (F. Kršinić), particularly its sensibility for light and form, and on his Parisian experiences (A. Maillol, A. Rodin and A. Bourdelle), Lozica created a unique series of intimist, lyrically shaped nudes featuring round volumes and flickering surfaces, anticipating the post-WWII sculptural synthesis of figuration and abstraction in Croatia. In the early 1940s, Lozica started being more of a realist in his approach to modelling dynamic sculptures featuring social themes and motifs from typical life in Dalmatia. These sculptures tell of an obvious shift from lyrical-meditative motifs towards Realism, connecting social themes and unaffected figuration of expressively modelled masses.
The contemplative portrait bust of Frida Grgić with a serene facial expression is executed in a refined realistic manner. The heart-shaped face is delicate and fragile, with hair parted in the middle and combed back, elegant neck and oval neckline. The facial features are modelled softly, with the refined treatment of white marble and a polished fluid surface, while the lower part of the bust, in the shoulder and breast area, is roughly carved with diagonal incisions and displays a clear organisation of matter and solid relationships within the block.

Text: Tatijana Gareljić, museum consultant 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

Slavko Kopač, Paris – Pont Alexandre III, 1939

Slavko Kopač
(1913-1995)
Paris – Pont Alexandre III, 1939
oil on canvas
55.5×38 cm
MG-1557

Slavko Kopač painted his Paris – Pont Alexandre III painting in 1939, i.e. immediately after he graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. After he moved to Paris, Kopač’s artistic sensibilities got liberated from traditional Academicism and he set out on a journey marked by imagination and a lucid creation of his avant-garde artistic expression. He replaced his “learned” brushstrokes with resonant stains of colour which he fit onto a white, neutral background, the result of which are mystical and poetic atmospheres in his compositions. There are only traces here of his later surrealist repertoire, i.e. in certain elements and in the manner developing into Kopač’s very own style.

Slavko Kopač was born in Vinkovci in 1913. He graduated in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1937 under Prof. Vladimir Becić. He moved to Paris in 1939 as a French government scholarship holder. At the outbreak of World War II, Kopač returned to Zagreb and then moved to Mostar as a drawing teacher at a local grammar school. Despite the war and to continue studying, in 1943 he moved to Florence where he remained until 1948, when he moved to Paris again. In the same year, he met Jean Dubuffet, and this is where and when a friendship and professional collaboration between the two artists began, spanning nearly 30 years. Together with Dubuffet, Kopač explored, produced and collected Art Brut works of art. In 1950 he was appointed as secretary and later as curator of the Collection of Art Brut. During his career, he met and worked with André Breton, B. Perret, M. Tapies and many other leading figures of the cultural scene in Paris. He also did sculpture, illustration (for a poem by André Breton) and ceramics. He exhibited in galleries in Paris, Milan, Rijeka, Venice, Lyon, Chicago and Louisville.

Text: Zlatko Tot,  curator trainee 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 Jean – Ivanović, Portrait of the Painter Karlo Mijić, 1939

Robert Jean – Ivanović
(1889 – 1968)
Portrait of the Painter Karlo Mijić, 1939
bronze
35 cm x 22 cm x 25.5 cm
MG–944

Croatian sculptor, medal-maker and secondary school teacher, studied sculpture at the academies in Zagreb (1908 – 1909, 1911, 1914) and Munich (1909 -1910), as well as the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in 1915 -1916.
The focal point of his artistic preoccupation is the human figure and the portrait. Initially, they were studies of the male body and the dynamically broken male figure engaged in hard physical labour that he consolidated in the series Labour (1915 – 1928). He softly modelled intimate and poetic female portraits and nudes, as sculptures in the round and reliefs in bronze and stone. He created several public and funeral monuments.
Throughout his sculptural activity he modelled realistic male portraits in relief and sculpture in the round, with good psychological characterization and summarily executed physical features. The portrait of Karlo Mijić, the sculptor’s colleague and friend from Sarajevo, is rendered as a shallow bust with a dynamically executed head of this striking painter.

Text: Tatijana Gareljić, museum consultant 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