Tag: Vanja Radauš

Vanja Radauš, Female Torso, 1934

Vanja Radauš
(1906 – 1975)
Female Torso, 1934
casting, bronze
58 x 17.5 x 25 cm
MG-1375
Radauš studied sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb under R. Frangeš Mihanović and R. Valdec, graduating in 1930 from I. Meštrović’s advanced course. He visited Paris several times (1928, 1930, 1931), where he encountered the works of A. Watteau, A. Rodin, and A. Bourdelle. His exposure to Michelangelo’s works in Italy in 1937 steered him towards expressiveness, movement, and drama, which became key features of his sculptural style. From 1940, he taught at the School of Crafts in Zagreb, and from 1945 until his retirement in 1969, he was a full professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb.
His social sensitivity and passionate commitment led him to join the Zemlja Association of Artists, where he was a member from 1932 to 1933. The principles of this socially engaged group would remain a permanent influence on both his personal and artistic choices. His works, including figures, portraits, and nudes, showcase expressiveness, dynamism, skilled modelling, and a focus on society’s marginalised members. He left a lasting impact in all areas of sculpture, from medals, terracotta, plaster, stone, wax, and bronze works, to public monuments, such as the Falling (Wounded Man) sculpture from 1938, which is located in the courtyard of the National Museum of Modern Art (A. Hebranga 1, Zagreb).
The powerful female nude is dramatically contorted, almost to the point of collapsing. Her head is tilted back towards the left shoulder and back. The pained expression on her face, coupled with her arms violently severed at the upper arms, intensifies the dramatic and expressive portrayal of existential helplessness.
Text: Tatijana Gareljić, 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

Vanja Radauš, Male Torso, 1934

Vanja Radauš
Male Torso, 1934
bronze / casting
84 x 29 x 21.5 cm
MG-1376

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. Vanja Radauš was a distinctive artistic personality. His specific sculpture was characterized by pronounced expressiveness and surrealistic motifs of a bizarre imaginative world.
Radauš’s Male Torso from 1934 was created as a counterpart to the Female Torso from the same year, both housed in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb. These are expressive nudes, charged with dramatic intensity emphasised by a painfully contorted posture and body tension. The strangeness and surreal impression are further intensified by intentionally distorted representations of the human figure (the headlessness and absence of arms in the male figure, as well as the identical incision below the shoulder in the female figure, unnaturally twisted body axes, and the heads thrown backward and sideways).

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

Vanja Radauš, Sculpture 36, 1968

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

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