Ksenija Kantoci
(1909 – 1995)
Torso, 1969 - 1971
carving, wood
66 x 25 x 33 cm
MG-3926
Ksenija Kantoci graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1937, and then continued her studies in France, Italy and Germany.
She modelled stylised portraits, abstract female figures and heads of domestic animals in bronze, stone, terracotta and wood, all of which are complemented by drawings made in various techniques. Kantoci’s striking psychologically charged and realistically conceived portraits feature a reduction of form and a compression of volume. By reducing mass, Kantoci almost completely abandoned the reality-based concept, which clearly sets her apart from other Croatian sculptors.
Ksenija Kantoci is an exceptional Croatian sculptress who received her input directly from the natural environment, especially the region of Dalmatinska Zagora (Dalmatian Hinterland), the impressive forms of which, such as animal heads, figures of women and chimneys, she transformed into works of universal significance. She has created a prolific oeuvre of wooden sculptures with rudimentary forms, accentuated monumentality, strong existential inspiration and symbolic dimension. By reducing matter, she created associative sculptures based on real templates, whether we recognise in them animal heads or figures, primarily of women. By accepting the natural properties of wood, the conflicting duality of its structure and the existing texture, she creates works of vertical form, closed core and hermetic content that are firmly rooted in the ground. She elaborates the archetypal wooden monolithic forms throughout the period of her sculptural maturity. Kantoci softly opens the mass with horizontal and vertical orientations in a balanced relationship of perpendicular and horizontal forms, as in the work Torso from her mature phase. The five-part form has a compact volume of elementary values and ambiguous associative stimulus.
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