Vladimir Becić, Vera and Mira, 1924

Vladimir Becić
Vera and Mira
1924
oil on canvas
70 x 65 cm
MG-2348

The joint portrait of his daughters, Vera and Mira, is a paradigmatic example of Magical Realism, where Vladimir Becić accentuates the metaphysical essence of the scene. Becić captures the liveliness of the girls, who have stilled themselves to pose for their father’s affection, by shaping them as softened ‘cubist’ volumes, which he arranges harmoniously within a sparse and undefined space.

Vladimir Becić (Slavonski Brod, 1886 – Zagreb, 1954) began his artistic education at the Crnčić and Čikoš school in Zagreb and continued it in 1905 at the Munich Academy under Hugo von Habermann. It was here that the European line of our modern art, known as the Munich Circle, took shape, comprising Becić, Kraljević, Račić, and Herman. He furthered his studies in Paris and, from 1916 to 1918, served as a war artist and correspondent on the front lines. After the war, he established the first art colony in the country in the idyllic Bosnian town of Blažuj. From his return to Zagreb in 1924 until his retirement in 1947, he taught painting at the Academy of Fine Arts. In 1930, together with Ljubo Babić and Jerolim Miše, he founded the Group of Three. Embracing the poetics of “pure painting,” the Group of Three pursued a mimetic approach and colourism as their stylistic and morphological ideal. With the advent of World War II, Becić’s impulsiveness mellowed, and his tonal palette narrowed. In the final years of his career, he returned to his youthful artistic ideals, adopting an openly Cézannesque style in his paintings.

Lada Bošnjak Velagić, museum consultant of the National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb

 

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