Tag: Anka Krizmanić

Anka Krizmanić, At the Concert,1948.

Anka Krizmanić
At the Concert,1948.
oil on canvas
51,5 x 60,5 cm
MG-1209

Anka Krizmanić (1896–1987) attended the private painting school of Tomislav Krizman from 1910 to 1913 and, from 1913 to 1917, the Kunstgewerbeschule in Dresden. From 1920 to 1930, she lived in Paris. Her oeuvre ranges from drawings, prints, pastels, and oils on canvas to graffiti, tapestries, fashion drawings, and sketches for puppet theater. In her portraits, she achieves a penetrating psychological characterization. Her work experienced a kind of revaluation with a large retrospective exhibition in the Art Pavilion in 1986 when it was learned that the once successful painter had been living alone for decades, forgotten by the world and the profession. The exhibition helped erase the bitter taste of long-term neglect, and Krizmanić, primarily a painter of intimacy, left an oeuvre of over 6,000 paintings in various media.
"At the Concert" introduces the viewer to an unusual perspective from the bottom angle and captures a personal impression of the cultural event. The characters are shown looking towards the stage, but their focus is not only on the performance but also on mutual relationships and interactions. In the foreground are two young girls leaning on the fence of the theater box, almost as if they are enraptured by the music or the event they are watching. Their faces are softly modeled, with soft smiles and closed eyes, suggesting a moment of relaxation and emotional connection. This closeness between the girls is almost tactile, with the artist creating an intimate atmosphere. At the same time, she is focused on depicting the two young girls, almost like the men approaching them from behind.

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

Anka Krizmanić, Medvednica After the Rain, 1926

Anka Krizmanić
Medvednica After the Rain, 1926
pastel on paper
50 x 58 cm
MG-4432

Anka Krizmanić (1896 – 1987) was a child painting prodigy and the youngest student at the Krizman School of Painting. Having already exhibited with the Medulić Group as a fourteen-year-old, her considerable talent and drawing skills acquired at such an early age were noticed at the School of Applied Arts in Dresden, which she graduated from in 1917. Despite the extreme forms of Expressionism and the radical New Reality that were prevalent in Dresden at that time, Anka Krizmanić persisted in emphasizing the true essence of life precisely in the beauty of the human body and nature. She reached the pinnacle of stylistic maturity between 1926 and 1929 in the series of landscapes, portraits and figural compositions that combine constructive and magical elements. In the pastel Medvednica After the Rain from 1926, the painter highlights the preternatural harmony and elemental beauty of the native landscape, and builds her vision on clear forms of solid plasticity consolidated by warm blue-green tonal harmony.

Anka Krizmanić herself said that she was made only for painting. Although she has worked for a long time as a draughtswoman at the School of Medicine and occasionally supported herself doing other jobs, she produced an impressive oeuvre of almost 6,000 recorded works, paintings, drawings, prints, sketches for tapestries and theatre… Until 1970, she has shown her works at about twenty solo and group exhibitions in Croatia and abroad.

Text: Lada Bošnjak Velagić, Senior curator of the National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb 2022
Translated by: Robertina Tomić
Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb 2022