Igor Rončević
Scenes from a Marriage, 1981
oil on canvas
122 x 178 cm
MG-4477
One of the main characteristics of Igor Rončević’s painting is an extremely colourful artistic expression. His painting titled Scenes from a Marriage from 1981 gives off a playful creative impression with details such as dots and various curves. Two irregular shapes stand out as the focal point on a red background. One in a dark red colour and the other in light blue. These shapes, like the background itself, are filled with curves and dots, and add to the painting’s distinct dynamism. Deepening his artistic expression with intriguing thematic units and always new artistic values, Igor Rončević stood out as a respected painter as early as the 1970s, when the aesthetics of painting was once again popular in the art world.
Igor Rončević (1951, Zadar) obtained a degree in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1976. Early on in his career, that is from 1979 to 1981, he worked as an associate in Prof. Ljubo Ivančić’s and Prof. Nikola Reiser’s Master Workshop, and he spent time in Paris as an Académie des Beaux-Arts’ scholarship holder. Over the course of his career, in addition to fifty or so solo exhibitions, he participated in about a hundred group exhibitions in Croatia and abroad. He has shown his work at the Galerie d’Art Internationale in Paris, at the Cairo Biennale in 1988 and the Contemporary Croatian Art exhibition in New Delhi, India in 2007. Rončević’s works are included in the book The Trans-Avantgarde International published by art theorist Achile Bonito Oliva in 1982, which confirmed his success as an artist of the Trans-Avantgarde, known as New Image in Croatia. Igor Rončević’s work broadened the horizons of contemporary Croatian painting, and his works are kept in prominent museum and gallery collections in Croatian and abroad.
Text: Lorena Šimić, trainee 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