Tag: Miroslav Kraljević

Miroslav Kraljević, In a Parisian Café, 1912

Miroslav Kraljević
In a Parisian Café, 1912
gouache, pastel on paper
41.1 x 44.5 cm
MG-7085

Miroslav Kraljević (1885–1913) began his law studies in Vienna after completing his education in Zagreb and Gospić, but he abandoned them to study painting. In 1906/07, he attended Moritz Heymann’s private graphic arts school in Munich, and in May 1907, he was admitted to the Munich Academy under Hugo von Habermann, where he socialised with Josip Račić and Vladimir Becić (the Munich Circle). After graduating, Kraljević returned to Požega in 1910, where he painted intensively until September 1911 before moving to Paris. He enrolled at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière but left shortly thereafter. In 1912, he held his first and only solo exhibition during his lifetime at the Ulrich Salon in Zagreb. He died of tuberculosis in 1913.
A scene from Parisian city life, created with gouache and pastel on paper, illustrates a lively café setting, bustling with chatter and activity. The seated figures, characterised by expressionistically distorted features and elongated in a Cézannesque manner, are depicted with rounded shapes, engaging in their bourgeois routine and the leisure of drinking coffee. The dynamic composition vividly captures a “photographic” slice of everyday life.

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

Miroslav Kraljević, Podvezica, 1910.

Miroslav Kraljević
(1885. – 1913.)
Podvezica, 1910.
terakota
MG-786

Miroslav Kraljević (1885-1913)
A Garter
1910
terracotta
MG-786

Miroslav Kraljević was a Croatian painter, graphic artist and sculptor, who studied in Vienna, Munich and Paris. Having been a member – together with painters Josip Račić and Vladimir Becić – of what was dubbed the Munich Circle, he is considered to be one of the pioneers of modern painting in Croatia.
After having graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, he moved to Požega in June 1910 to stay with his family, after which he left for Paris in September 1911. During his stay in Požega, he created realistic sculptures, such as a portrait of his niece Ivana, relief portraits of Požega-born writers Janko Jurković, Josip Eugen Tomić and Vjekoslav Babukić, and a portrait plaque of his father.
Kraljević’s creative power in sculpture is primarily reflected in his figurative compositions of rural women and men prone to debauchery, good examples of which are his A Fight and Drunkards sculptures. He modelled these dynamic small sculptures in terracotta, given that terracotta is the most pliable medium to present detailed observations of sequences of debauched human nature.
Kraljević’s A Garter sculpture from 1910 precedes these two sculptures. It is a sculpture of a woman of a pronouncedly raw sensuality with a flirtatious attitude featuring minimal portrait traits, a diabolical smile on her face, high cheekbones and a square chin. Kraljević continued to elaborate the form of this mature coquette from Požega in a twisted body posture wearing a domed crinoline in his many Parisian drawings of women.

Text: tatijana Gareljić, museum consultant of the National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Translated by: Ana Janković
Photo: © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb

Miroslav Kraljević, Self-portrait, 1912

Miroslav Kraljević
Self-portrait, 1912
oil on canvas, 64 x 45 cm
MG-774

Miroslav Kraljević (1885–1913) hails from a prominent Slavonian family. He was educated in Zagreb in the period from 1898 to 1902, and then spent two years in Gospić attending grammar school. In the autumn of 1904, he started studying law in Vienna and was also taking Georg Fischhof’s painting classes. After having abandoned law school, he started attending graphic artist Moritz Heymann’s private school in Munich in 1906/07. In May 1907, he was admitted to the Munich Academy where he studied under Hugo von Habermann and socialised with Josip Račić and Vladimir Becić (the Munich Circle). After he graduated, Kraljević returned to Požega in 1910 and painted intensively until September 1911, when he moved to Paris and enrolled at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, which he soon abandoned. He first worked in Meštrović’s studio and then his own in Montparnasse. He published caricatures in the satirical magazine Panurge. In 1912, he had his first and only solo exhibition in the Ulrich Salon in Zagreb. He died of tuberculosis in 1913.

Kraljević’s Self-portrait from 1912, painted one year before his death, completes a series of the artist’s self-portraits, which began with the renowned Self-portrait with a Dog, painted in 1910. Unlike the realistic depiction and the Munich manner of tonal painting in the self-portrait from 1910, where the artist’s youth and health are emphasised by the vitality of the dog in the centre lower part of the painting, in the Self-portrait from 1912, in turn, the physicality of the artist’s tuberculosis-ridden figure has completely disappeared in the expressionist treatment of the energetic, long brush stroke. Facial features are devoid of meticulous treatment and only indicated with a rough pennelatta thus enhancing the expressive effect of the whole. The concrete ambience of the room from the earlier self-portrait in a seated position and painted almost in full height, is replaced with a depiction of a bust and a focus on the face emerging from the anonymous, dark olive-green background suggesting the artist’s body weakened by disease and imminent death.

Tekst: Ivana Rončević Elezović, museum advisor 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

Miroslav Kraljević, Golgotha, 1912

Miroslav Kraljević
Golgotha, 1912
oil on canvas: 72.1 x 115.3 cm
MG-7084

In his Golgotha from 1912, Miroslav Kraljević situates the main motif of the Crucifixion deep within the scene, highlighting the contorted body of Christ with just a light accent. The foreground is dominated by the deformed figures of soldiers hunched over a game of dice, and the upright Longinus leaning against a lance. The expressiveness of the composition, the ominously bare ambience and the strong colour symbolism make this one of the seminal paintings in Kraljević’s Parisian oeuvre, but also for a new generation of painters that was just being formed in Zagreb.

Miroslav Kraljević hails from a wealthy noble family in Slavonia, who soon after starting his law studies in Vienna decided to switch and study painting in Munich instead. From 1905 to 1910, Josip Račić, Vladimir Becić and Oskar Herman had also been students at the Academy in Munich in the class of Professor Hugo Habermann. What connects painters of this Munich Circle are primarily their orientations towards European modernity, similar starting points and role models. After having graduated from the Munich Academy, Kraljević returned to Požega in 1910. He painted intensively and after having received excellent reviews he moved to Paris in 1911. In Paris he merged all previous artistic experiences with bold exploration of new ideas and styles, and created a number of excellent portraits, self-portraits, genre scenes and vedute. Not even a year later, seriously illness forced him to return home. Having created an oeuvre of the utmost importance for the development of our modern painting, Kraljević died of tuberculosis in Zagreb in 1913, not even 28 years old

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

Miroslav Kraljević, Self-portrait with a Dog, 1910

Miroslav Kraljević
Self-portrait with a Dog, 1910
oil on canvas, 111.7 x 85.7 cm
MG-776

After having been educated in Zagreb and Gospić, Miroslav Kraljević (1885–1913) enrolled to study law in Vienna in 1906, which he then interrupted in order to study painting. In 1906/07, he started attending the private school of graphic artist Moritz Heymann in Munich, and in May 1907 he was accepted at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich where he studied under Hugo von Habermann and socialized with Josip Račić and Vladimir Becić (the three became known as the Munich Circle). After he graduated, Kraljević returned to Požega in 1910 and painted intensively until 1911, when he moved to Paris, where he enrolled at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, which he soon left. He first worked in Meštrović’s studio and then his own in Montparnasse. He published caricatures in the satirical magazine Panurge. In 1912, he staged his first and only solo exhibition at the Ulrich Salon in Zagreb. He died of tuberculosis in 1913.

The emblematic Self-portrait with a Dog, which Kraljević painted in Požega during the final year of his studies in Munich, shows the painter alongside a vital image of the animal in a relationship of obvious affection. The characters are placed in an intimate interior, in the background of which are prominent outlines of Diego Velázquez’s (1599–1660) portrait, as one of Kraljević’s painting role-models. The gaze of the painter and the German shepherd beside him are suggestively aimed at the observer. The composition in dark tonalities still has traditional overtones, although a freer and more energetic brushstroke is already visible with glimpses of specific expressionist energy

Text: Ivana Rončević Elezović, Museum advisor 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.

Skip to content