The exhibition titled Steps, on view in the Old City Hall in Split from 30 November, is part of a series of exhibitions from the NMMU on Tour series. It is curated to showcase a selection of the rich collection of the National Museum of Modern Art in the revitalised and impressive Gothic palace by the director of the National Museum of Modern Art, Branko Franceschi, who has chosen around thirty iconic works by some of the most distinguished names in Croatian art from the late 19th century to the early 1930s, including Ivan Meštrović, Mato Celestin Medović, Vladimir Becić, Ljubo Babić, Jerolim Miše, Dubravko Detoni, Krsto Hegedušić, Vilim Svečnjak, Robert Frangeš Mihanović, Rudolf Valdec, and others.
In the foreword to the accompanying catalogue, Branko Franceschi writes:The enforced hibernation that the National Museum of Modern Art finds itself in since 2022, to allow for a comprehensive renovation of its seat in the Vranyczany Palace in Zagreb, has, through a strategic shift in programming, unexpectedly triggered the museum’s unparalleled national presence to date. With an unprecedented number of loans to other institutions for exhibitions outside its own premises, the NMMU on Tour programme has enabled us to conceive and deliver phenomenological displays of the collection curated by our team, in partner institutions throughout Croatia and abroad. The collaboration with the Split City Museum on an exhibition at the Old City Hall completes the first cycle of the program, launched in 2022 with an ambitious display of 200 artworks titled One World in the Two Palaces museum in Zadar. After relocating the collection to temporary storage in 2023, we successfully planned and organised similar exhibitions this year in the museums of Križevci, Labin, Rijeka, Šibenik, and Dubrovnik. After the Split exhibition, which presents the popular early 20th-century art period in three “steps,” we will showcase its complementary counterpart at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest. The latter exhibition, titled Parallel Lines, will present the full spectrum of Croatian high modernism art from the latter half of the 20th century. The renaming of the Modern Gallery to the National Museum of Modern Art has thus been fully validated, resolving any lingering doubts, even in the minds of the last remaining sceptics, about the name change.
This exhibition is a must-see for any educational institution in our wider region, as it offers a unique in-person learning opportunity about the essence of Croatian artistic expression, from the time when preserving national identity was a primary concern to the period when artists were able to develop within the broader Central European context – said Vesna Bulić Baketić, the director the Split City Museum, as the hosting institution. She added that the combined effort of two major institutions, one local and one national, seeks to bring national artistic and heritage works within reach of audiences who can only satisfy their cultural and artistic needs in their own community, and that Split has demonstrated its ability to host and stage significant exhibitions.
As the National Museum of Modern Art undergoes renovation, this exhibition presents a unique opportunity to celebrate and emphasise the strength of Croatian national artistic expression in the distinctive setting of Split’s Old City Hall.
Reproductions: Bela Čikoš – Sesija: Triumph of Innocence (Decorative panel), 1900 / gixigo, canvas; 90.4 x 290.6 cm / MG-510
Emanuel Vidović: At the City of the Dead, 1919, oil on canvas; 100 x 137.5 cm (with frame: 107 x 143 cm) / MG-579
Mato Celestin Medović: Bacchanal, 1890-1893, oil on canvas; 206.5 x 359.2 cm (with frame: 257 x 16 x 413 cm) / MG-7088
Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb