Croatian History

Oscar Nemon (1906-1985), outstanding sculptor and medallist, was born in Croatian town Osijek, and has Jewish roots (Oscar Neumann). Having obtained his baccalaureate in Osijek, in 1923 he moved to Vienna. He was inspired and supported by Ivan Mestrovic, a great Croatian sculptor. In 1931 Nemon made a portrait of Sigmund Freud in person, for which Freud said to be “…a very good and astonishingly lifelike impression of me”. After a short stay in Paris, having obtained bursary from his…

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Oton Gliha (1914-1999) depicted through his paintings his poetic impressions about hundreds of kilometers of dry stone walls called GROMACE, built on numerous Croatian islands during many centuries. His very original style, based on the unique texture of the gromace, attracted considerable interest during exhibitions in Venice (the bienalle), Sao Paulo, Torino, Milano, Genova, Paris. Some of his paintings are held in the Tate Gallery, the Guggenheim Museum, also in Sarajevo, Ohrid, and in the building of YU government in…

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Virgilije Nevjestic is one of today’s greatest graphic artists, a professor in Paris (since 1977 at the “Institute for the formation of restorers of works of art”, and also the chief of the “Atelier for artistic technology”). His masterpieces are in possession o many private collections, including a collection of Georges Pompidou, a former president of France. One of his famous large-scale paintings is Vukovar, which he described as a scream, revolt against an evil done to the Croatian people.

Zdravko Ducmelic (1923-1989), outstanding Croatian artist born in Vinkovci, studied painting in Zagreb, Rome and Madrid (Real Academia de San Fernando), and in 1949 emigrated to Argentina. From 1963 to 1966 he was director of Escuela Superior de Artes de la Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Zdravko Ducmelic, autoportrait Ducmelic masterfully illustrated a famous book “Laberintos”, written by Jorge Luis Borges (Ed. De Arte Gaglianone, Buenos Aires, 1983), with his surreal, quasi-metaphysical works (…el pintor preferido de Borges). He also made…

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Josip Turkalj (or Joseph Turkaly, 1924-2007) sculptured numerous works that are found throughout America in private collections and public places. Suffice to mention a few: an eighteen-foot bronze Moses on the campus of Notre Dame, two marble statues of Mary (Our Lady of Peace and Our Lady of Bistrica) at the National Shrine in Washington, D.C., a bronze statue of George Washington in the city of Buffalo, also the statues of St. Paul (Croatian church in Cleveland), Cardinal Stepinac (Croatian…

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Dusan Dzamonja (1928) is an avant-garde sculptor whose monuments can be seen, besides Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, also in public areas in Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Italy, the USA, and in the new Yugoslavia. As a means of expression he uses iron, glass, concrete etc. In 1998 he had a great retrospective in Paris (Place Vendome).

Zvonimir Mihanovic, born in 1946 near Split, achieved worldwide fame for his poetic paintings of peace and tranquility along Croatian coast, drawn with breathtaking precision. In 1978 he was awarded the grand prize of the prestigious Salon d’Automne in Paris. In 1996 his work was exhibited in the Croatian Pavillion at the Atlanta Summer Olympics.

Dimitrije Popovic held three exhibitions in Rome as a part of Vatican’s celebration of Grand Jubilee to mark 2000 years of Christianity. These exhibitions are also part of the project “The Way and the Holy Land (Rome – Jerusalem)”. Paintings within Popovic’s cycle Corpus Mysticum are devoted to Jesus Christ and his crucifixion. Born in Montenegro (1951), he graduated at the Academy in Zagreb. In 1982 he exhibited in Pforzheim with Salvador Dali.

Ante Dabro, born in Croatia in 1938, began carving as a shepherd. His talent was first noticed during his childhood, when he carved a dove so precisely, that his cat jumped on it. He studied under Antun Augustincic in Zagreb. Not agreeing with communist Yugoslavia, since 1967 he lives in Australia, where he became one of the most outstanding sculptors. He exhibited in many european cities, and his work is especially esteemed in London. Some of his most important works…

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Naive art is quite widespread and highly esteemed. The first steps were undertaken by the painter Krsto Hegedusic (1901-1971) in the Croatian village of Hlebine. It was the famous Hlebine school. Hegedusic also founded a group of artists called “Zemlja” (Earth) in Zagreb in 1929, which has been forbidden by the Yugoslav (Serbian) police in 1935. From a large number of naive painters, whose creations decorate private and state collections from Paris to Tokyo, let us mention only a few:…

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