Marta Ehrlich
Vase with Flowers, 1938
tempera on paper
580 × 493 mm
MG-4689
Marta Ehrlich (Zagreb, 1910 – 1980) was a prominent Croatian painter of the 20th century. She graduated in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1934, studying privately under Vladimir Becić. The following year, she spent a study period in Paris. At the beginning of her artistic career, she relied on Becić’s painterly style, but in later years she moved closer to surrealist poetics and lyrical abstraction. During the 1960s, she increasingly devoted herself to ceramics, creating small sculptures, painted tiles, and plates, while in painting she embraced an abstract style associated with Art Informel. She often painted cityscapes, landscapes, interiors, and still lifes, developing an intimate and imaginative artistic expression.
In her earlier creative phase, Ehrlich produced works with a lyrical and introspective character. During the artist’s second stay in Paris in 1938, she created numerous works featuring city views and still lifes. A notable example from that period is the painting Vase with Flowers, distinguished by the artist’s refined expression based on emotion and visual impression. The central motif of the work is a bouquet of pink flowers in a transparent vase, surrounded by colorful floral and abstract shapes. This composition, which seemingly contains elements of Impressionism, was painted with free, playful brushstrokes and a vibrant color palette. The painting is dominated by warm tones of red, pink, yellow, and orange, harmoniously blending with cooler shades of blue and green in the background.
Text: Luciana Fuks, trainee curator at the National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art , Zagreb
Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art , Zagreb
