Vanja Radauš
Sculpture 36, 1968
bronze / casting
71 x 54 x 22 cm
MG-2657
Croatian academic Vanja Radauš (1906–1975) was educated in Zagreb and Paris. During the period from 1932 to 1934, he was a member of the socially engaged Earth Association of Artists, which operated from 1929 to 1935 when the association’s activities were banned by the authorities. He worked as a teacher at the School of Crafts and the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. He was a distinctive artistic personality. His specific sculpture was characterized by pronounced expressiveness and surrealistic motifs of a bizarre imaginative world.
In the late 1960s, Vanja Radauš explored, among other things, the abstract form of the so-called ‘pure shapes. During this time, he created collages in line with the Exat 51 and New Tendencies movements. In the Sculpture 36, for example, we can discern undulating forms reminiscent of Bakić’s abstraction combined with the rough, textured surfaces of Dušan Džamonja. Stylistically and expressively completely separate from the rest of his oeuvre and his recognizable style, this segment of Radauš’s artistic output was criticized by art critics of that time for a number of shortcomings.
Text: Ivana Rončević Elezović, 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