Tag: Paris

Marta Ehrlich, Paris, 1938

Marta Ehrlich
Paris, 1938
tempera on paper
433 x 573 mm
MG-4713

There were very few women painters in Croatia between the two World Wars. The artistic culture was largely defined by a “male gaze,” to borrow Laura Mulvey’s term, which she used in 1973 to describe commercial film, historically shaped by heterosexual men for their own viewing pleasure. The extent to which Erlich’s artistic work can be understood in this context remains for future researchers, but it is clear that her time in Paris had a lasting impact. While the so-called Paris School of the 1930s, characterised by a pluralism of realistic painting approaches – ranging from various post-impressionist to surrealist styles – was already losing its influence, it still left a deep trace in Marta Ehrlich’s work. This trace can most succinctly be described as the concept of freedom. Specifically, during the interwar period, the Zagreb art and pedagogical scene placed a strong emphasis on discipline in drawing and colour. Any departure from local style or rigid composition was discouraged. In this work, as well as all the other paintings created in Paris, Marta Ehrlich turns to a different form of painting. Squares enclosed by palaces, full of trees and passers-by, capture her attention. She typically depicts them from above; tree trunks lose their volume and mass, becoming simple lines painted with a brush, along with branches, while the leaves are depicted as a series of colourful smudges, devoid of clear outlines. The trees seamlessly merge with building façades, creating a sense of fluidity that – consistent with post-impressionist tendencies – seems to shimmer in the air.

Text: Klaudio Štefančić, senior curator 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

Željko Hegedušić, Dance, Paris, 1930

Željko Hegedušić
(1906 - 2004)
Dance, Paris, 1930
ink on paper
265 x 178 mm
MG-6536

Hegedušić was born in 1906 in Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina, but the artistic environment of Zagreb and later Paris will play a crucial role in his artistic development. In 1931, Hegedušić moved to Paris to continue his specialised education. Before devoting himself fully to working under the strong influence of Surrealism, in the period from 1930 to 1941 Hegedušić created several anthological works, which can be connected to New Objectivity, an artistic movement that used grotesque to express criticism of European society between the two world wars.

The drawing “Dance, Paris” would have had all the features of an urban, hedonistic life typical of art at the turn of the century, had Hegedušić not been influenced by the artistic avant-garde and used the montage technique, on the one hand, and expanded the scene with new content, on the other. The representation of two central figures in the drawing – a dancer (a prostitute?) and an upper-class citizen – has all the hallmarks of Secession: a precise and continuous line that emphasises elegance so much that even the corpulent male figure appears light and graceful. Hegedušić, however, disrupts this Secession thread by adding three spatially and temporally completely unrelated motifs to the scene: a group of musicians in the upper part of the drawing, a group of protesters and a line of cars in the lower half of the drawing. Although all the depicted motifs are part of city life, Hegedušić avoids drawing an allegory of urban life by rendering the said motifs in different sizes, and by their arrangement on the surface. Because what Hegedušić conveys is not a story, but the critique of society. In line with the Zemlja Association of Artists, that he will exhibit with upon his return from Paris, and in line with New Objectivity, Hegedušić unequivocally points to the world of vast social differences, the easy life of some (high bourgeoisie) and the hard life of others (workers, prostitutes) in the cacophony of a metropolis such as Paris.

Klaudio Štefančić, curator 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

Leo Junek, Cherche Midi, Paris, 1938

Leo Junek
(1899 – 1993)
Cherche Midi, Paris, 1938
oil on canvas
73 x 92 cm
MG-1487

After having graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, Leo Junek moved to Paris in 1925 to continue his education. Junek’s early work is typified by self-portraits of monumental simplicity and an increasingly pronounced colour scheme, which is going to culminate in the early 1930s in Parisian vedutas and landscapes of magical pictorial power. Under the influence of Cézanne and Fauvist role-models and a direct contact with Raoul Dufy, Junek created his own visionary world using refined colour harmonies in seemingly simple broad surfaces and blotches. In Junek’s interpretation, the building of the military prison Cherche Midi in Paris, with barred windows and high fence wall, has grown from a cityscape into a unique rhythmic play of colour, light and texture. In the 1940s, Junek’s painting neared the ideas of Abstract art, and after he moved to Orsay in 1950, he started painting entirely in the vein of colour-infused Lyrical Abstraction. Leo Junek (Lorris Junec) painted almost his entire oeuvre in France, and although he lived in Croatia only for a short time and had relatively few exhibitions, he exerted a significant influence on Croatian painting. Between the two world wars, many of Croatian scholarship recipients in Paris turned to him for help (Juraj Plančić, Vjekoslav Parać, Marijan Detoni, Slavko Kopač). He collaborated intensively with Krsto Hegedušić on the foundation of the Earth Association of Artists, but faithful to his more personal and urban path towards modernism he parted ways with the Association as early as the closing of their first exhibition in 1929. Junek’s poetics exerted a particular influence on Croatian painters with a distinct sensibility for colour (Edo Kovačević, Vera Nikolić, Slavko Kopač, Antun Mezdjić, Edo Murtić, Josip Vaništa).

Text: Lada Bošnjak Velagić, senior curator at the National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb, 2023.
Translated by: Robertina Tomić
Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb, 2023.

Željko Hegedušić, Dance, Paris, 1930

Željko Hegedušić
(1906 – 2004)
Dance, Paris, 1930
ink on paper, 265 x 178 mm
MG-6536

Hegedušić was born in 1906 in Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina, but the artistic environment of Zagreb and later Paris will play a crucial role in his artistic development. In 1931, Hegedušić moved to Paris to continue his specialised education. Before devoting himself fully to working under the strong influence of Surrealism, in the period from 1930 to 1941 Hegedušić created several anthological works, which can be connected to New Objectivity, an artistic movement that used grotesque to express criticism of European society between the two world wars.

The drawing “Dance, Paris” would have had all the features of an urban, hedonistic life typical of art at the turn of the century, had Hegedušić not been influenced by the artistic avant-garde and used the montage technique, on the one hand, and expanded the scene with new content, on the other. The representation of two central figures in the drawing – a dancer (a prostitute?) and an upper-class citizen – has all the hallmarks of Secession: a precise and continuous line that emphasises elegance so much that even the corpulent male figure appears light and graceful. Hegedušić, however, disrupts this Secession thread by adding three spatially and temporally completely unrelated motifs to the scene: a group of musicians in the upper part of the drawing, a group of protesters and a line of cars in the lower half of the drawing. Although all the depicted motifs are part of city life, Hegedušić avoids drawing an allegory of urban life by rendering the said motifs in different sizes, and by their arrangement on the surface. Because what Hegedušić conveys is not a story, but the critique of society. In line with the Zemlja Association of Artists, that he will exhibit with upon his return from Paris, and in line with New Objectivity, Hegedušić unequivocally points to the world of vast social differences, the easy life of some (high bourgeoisie) and the hard life of others (workers, prostitutes) in the cacophony of a metropolis such as Paris.

Klaudio Štefančić, curator 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

Leo Junek, Maternité de Porte Royal, Paris, 1940

Leo Junek
Maternité de Porte Royal, Paris, 1940
oil on canvas
81 x 100 cm
National Museum of Modern Art
MG-1488

Junek’s complete devotion to pure painting culminated on the eve of World War II in urban vedutas of remarkable pictoriality. Junek paints the Maternité de Porte Royal maternity hospital in Paris, where his daughter was born in 1940, with seemingly simple broad surfaces and spots of colour, combining colourism and linear conception. Deviating from the Zemlja-like concept based on the national message, but also from the established tendencies of contemporary French art, Junek builds his own artistic vision on a deep understanding and interpretation of Cézannian modernist premises and on exploring the possibilities of colour as a fundamental element of painterly expression.

After having graduated from the Zagreb Academy of Fine Arts in 1925, Leo Junek moved to Paris as a French government scholarship recipient and stayed in France for the rest of his life. Together with Krsto Hegedušić, he initiated the founding of the Zemlja Association of Artists, but consistent with his more personal and urban path towards Modernism, he left the Association as early as the closing of their first exhibition in 1929. Junek’s early work is typified by a series of self-portraits with an increasingly pronounced colour scheme. In addition to the contemporary French art scene and a particular influence of Raoul Dufy with ‘colours of pure life joy’, Junek was also influenced by the French artistic heritage, especially stained glass and fresco painting. He explored the relationship between drawing and coloured spots, and developed his colourism further towards Abstract Art and Tachisme. In 1950, he moved to Orsay and painted in the vein of colour-infused Lyrical Abstraction wherein details are not important and colour is increasingly liberated. Although Junek painted almost his entire oeuvre in France, and he only had four solo exhibitions in Croatia during his lifetime, his work and friendships exerted a significant influence on painting in Croatia. Junek’s support for our painters who came to Paris for training between the two wars was especially important (Krsto Hegedušić, Juraj Plančić, Vjekoslav Parać, Marijan Detoni, Slavko Kopač…).

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