Art Pavilion
Encyclopedia
The Art Pavilion in Zagreb is an art gallery in Zagreb
, Croatia
. The Pavilion is located in the Lower Town
area of the city, south of Nikola Šubić Zrinski Square
and just north of the King Tomislav Square with the Main Train Station
. Established in 1898, it is the oldest gallery in the Southeast Europe
and the only purpose-built gallery in Zagreb designed specifically to accommodate large scale exhibitions.
in the spring of 1895. In May 1896 a Millennium Exhibition was to be held in Budapest
, celebrating 1,000 years of Hungarian
statehood, and artists from what was then Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia
were invited to attend. Urged by Bukovac, Croatian artists decided to present their works in a purpose-built Pavilion, constructed around a prefabricated iron skeleton so that it could easily be shipped to Zagreb after the exhibition. The Budapest Pavilion was designed by Hungarian architects Flóris Korb
and Kálmán Giergl
and was constructed by the Danubius building company.
After the exhibition had ended, the building's skeleton was transported to Zagreb and Austrian architects Fellner & Helmer (who were at the time active in Zagreb, and had earlier designed the Croatian National Theatre building) were hired to design a new version of the building based on the iron skeleton, while the Hönigsberg & Deutsch
building company was contracted to perform the actual construction. The building's exterior was decorated with sculptures in the academic art
style — the eastern facade displays busts of three Renaissance
painters of Croatian ancestry — Giulio Clovio (Julije Klović), Andrea Schiavone
(Andrija Medulić) and Vittore Carpaccio
, and the western facade has busts of Michelangelo
, Raphael
and Titian
.
The construction went on for two years between 1897 and 1898 and the Pavilion was officially inaugurated on 15 December 1898 with a large exhibition showcasing works of local artists called Croatian Salon . The exhibition was very popular and attracted some 10,000 visitors, at a time when Zagreb had a total population of 60,000.
The gallery has a total display area of 600 m2 and does not have a permanent display as it specialises in one-off solo and group exhibitions representing notable oeuvres and art movements from all periods and styles, with works by both Croatian and foreign artists. Throughout its history the gallery organised around 700 exhibitions with artists ranging from the Earth Group
collective to George Grosz
, Henry Moore
, Auguste Rodin
, Andy Warhol
, Mimmo Rotella
and many others. Since 2005 every year around the time of the anniversary of the Pavilion's foundation it publishes a CD-ROM
with a virtual tour
of exhibitions held in the past year.
In recent years it featured retrospective exhibitions of artists such as Milivoj Uzelac, Gilles Aillaud
, Edo Kovačević, and Gerhard Richter
, and group exhibitions which featured works of contemporary artists such as Santiago Sierra
and Boris Mikhailov
, as well as 19th century artists such as Karl von Piloty
, Nikolaos Gyzis, Gabriel von Max
and Franz Stuck
.
In 2006, the glass roof of the Pavilion was renovated and the lighting system was replaced, and as of 2010 renovation works on the entire facade are in progress.
Zagreb
Zagreb is the capital and the largest city of the Republic of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb lies at an elevation of approximately above sea level. According to the last official census, Zagreb's city...
, Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
. The Pavilion is located in the Lower Town
Donji Grad
Donji grad is one of the 17 city districts of Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. It is located in the central part of the city and has 45,108 inhabitants . The official name of the district is rarely used, for it is dubbed centar by most of the Zagreb residents....
area of the city, south of Nikola Šubić Zrinski Square
Nikola Šubić Zrinski Square
Nikola Šubić Zrinski Square is a square and park in Donji Grad, the central part of Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. It is located near the central Ban Jelačić Square, halfway towards the Main Railway Station. It is a part of the so-called Green horseshoe or Lenuzzi's horseshoe , which consists of...
and just north of the King Tomislav Square with the Main Train Station
Zagreb Main Station
Zagreb Main Station is the central railway station in Zagreb and the largest railway station in Croatia. It is located in the center of Zagreb, on King Tomislav Square....
. Established in 1898, it is the oldest gallery in the Southeast Europe
Southeast Europe
Southeast Europe or Southeastern Europe is a relatively recent political designation for the states of the Balkans. Writers such as Maria Todorova and Vesna Goldsworthy have suggested the use of the term Southeastern Europe to replace the word Balkans for the region, to minimize potential...
and the only purpose-built gallery in Zagreb designed specifically to accommodate large scale exhibitions.
History
The idea of creating the gallery was first put forward by Croatian painter Vlaho BukovacVlaho Bukovac
Vlaho Bukovac was a Croatian painter.-Life:- Early life :Bukovac was born Biagio Faggioni in the town of Cavtat south of Dubrovnik in Dalmatia...
in the spring of 1895. In May 1896 a Millennium Exhibition was to be held in Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
, celebrating 1,000 years of Hungarian
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
statehood, and artists from what was then Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia
Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia
The Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia or Croatia Slavonia was an autonomous kingdom within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was part of the Hungarian Kingdom within the dual Austro-Hungarian state, being within the Lands of the Crown of St. Stephen or Transleithania...
were invited to attend. Urged by Bukovac, Croatian artists decided to present their works in a purpose-built Pavilion, constructed around a prefabricated iron skeleton so that it could easily be shipped to Zagreb after the exhibition. The Budapest Pavilion was designed by Hungarian architects Flóris Korb
Flóris Korb
Flóris Korb Hungarian architect.-Career:After finishing his studies in Berlin, he returned to Budapest to work under Alajos Hauszmann for fourteen years, during which time he took part in designing the New York Palace.In 1893 he entered into a partnership with Kalman Giergl which resulted in many...
and Kálmán Giergl
Kálmán Giergl
Kálmán Giergl , a significant figure in Hungarian eclectic architectural style. A member of the Györgyi-Giergl artistic family.- Family background :...
and was constructed by the Danubius building company.
After the exhibition had ended, the building's skeleton was transported to Zagreb and Austrian architects Fellner & Helmer (who were at the time active in Zagreb, and had earlier designed the Croatian National Theatre building) were hired to design a new version of the building based on the iron skeleton, while the Hönigsberg & Deutsch
Hönigsberg & Deutsch
Hönigsberg & Deutsch was an architecture studio and construction company formed in Zagreb by architects Leo Hönigsberg and Julio Deutsch, active between 1889 and 1911. They produced over 90 known works in the Lower Town area of Zagreb, built during the redevelopment in the years following the 1880...
building company was contracted to perform the actual construction. The building's exterior was decorated with sculptures in the academic art
Academic art
Academic art is a style of painting and sculpture produced under the influence of European academies of art. Specifically, academic art is the art and artists influenced by the standards of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts, which practiced under the movements of Neoclassicism and Romanticism,...
style — the eastern facade displays busts of three Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
painters of Croatian ancestry — Giulio Clovio (Julije Klović), Andrea Schiavone
Andrea Schiavone
Andrea Meldolla , also known as Andrea Schiavone or Andrea Lo Schiavone was an Italian Renaissance painter and etcher, born in present-day Croatia, active mainly in the city of Venice.-Biography:...
(Andrija Medulić) and Vittore Carpaccio
Vittore Carpaccio
Vittore Carpaccio was an Italian painter of the Venetian school, who studied under Gentile Bellini. He is best known for a cycle of nine paintings, The Legend of Saint Ursula. His style was somewhat conservative, showing little influence from the Humanist trends that transformed Italian...
, and the western facade has busts of Michelangelo
Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...
, Raphael
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
and Titian
Titian
Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576 better known as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near...
.
The construction went on for two years between 1897 and 1898 and the Pavilion was officially inaugurated on 15 December 1898 with a large exhibition showcasing works of local artists called Croatian Salon . The exhibition was very popular and attracted some 10,000 visitors, at a time when Zagreb had a total population of 60,000.
The gallery has a total display area of 600 m2 and does not have a permanent display as it specialises in one-off solo and group exhibitions representing notable oeuvres and art movements from all periods and styles, with works by both Croatian and foreign artists. Throughout its history the gallery organised around 700 exhibitions with artists ranging from the Earth Group
Earth Group
The Earth Group was a Croatian arts collective and which brought together artists, architects and intellectuals and which was active in Zagreb from 1929 to 1935. The group aimed to defend their artistic independence against foreign influences such as Impressionism or Neoclassicism and Art for...
collective to George Grosz
George Grosz
Georg Ehrenfried Groß was a German artist known especially for his savagely caricatural drawings of Berlin life in the 1920s...
, Henry Moore
Henry Moore
Henry Spencer Moore OM CH FBA was an English sculptor and artist. He was best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art....
, Auguste Rodin
Auguste Rodin
François-Auguste-René Rodin , known as Auguste Rodin , was a French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past...
, Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
, Mimmo Rotella
Mimmo Rotella
Domenico "Mimmo" Rotella, , was an Italian artist and poet best known for his works of décollage and psychogeographics, made from torn advertising posters.Rotella was born in Catanzaro, Calabria....
and many others. Since 2005 every year around the time of the anniversary of the Pavilion's foundation it publishes a CD-ROM
CD-ROM
A CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data....
with a virtual tour
Virtual Tour
A virtual tour is a simulation of an existing location, usually composed of a sequence of video images. They also may use other multimedia elements such as sound effects, music, narration, and text....
of exhibitions held in the past year.
In recent years it featured retrospective exhibitions of artists such as Milivoj Uzelac, Gilles Aillaud
Gilles Aillaud
Gilles Aillaud was an internationally-known French painter, set decorator, and playwright; as well, he was one of the main proponents of the Nouvelle Figuration and Figuration Narrative schools of art....
, Edo Kovačević, and Gerhard Richter
Gerhard Richter
Gerhard Richter is a German visual artist. Richter has simultaneously produced abstract and photorealistic painted works, as well as photographs and glass pieces, thus undermining the concept of the artist’s obligation to maintain a single cohesive style.- Biography :Gerhard Richter was born in...
, and group exhibitions which featured works of contemporary artists such as Santiago Sierra
Santiago Sierra
Santiago Sierra is a Spanish artist. He lives in Madrid.Sierra's most well-known works involve hired laborers completing menial tasks...
and Boris Mikhailov
Boris Mikhailov (photographer)
Boris Andreyevich Mikhailov is a fine art photographer who has been described as one of the most important artists to have emerged from the former USSR...
, as well as 19th century artists such as Karl von Piloty
Karl von Piloty
Karl Theodor von Piloty was a German painter.Von Piloty was born in Munich. His father, Ferdinand Piloty , enjoyed a great reputation as a lithographer. In 1840, Karl was admitted as a student of the Munich Academy, under the artists Karl Schorn and Julius Schnorr von Karolsfeld...
, Nikolaos Gyzis, Gabriel von Max
Gabriel von Max
Gabriel Cornelius Ritter von Max was a Prague-born Austrian painter.He was born Gabriel Cornelius Max, the son of Czech sculptor Joseph Max and Anna Schumann. He studied between 1855 and 1858 at the Prague Academy of Arts with Eduard von Engerth...
and Franz Stuck
Franz Stuck
Franz Stuck , Franz Ritter von Stuck after 1906, was a German symbolist/Art Nouveau painter, sculptor, engraver, and architect.-Life and career:...
.
In 2006, the glass roof of the Pavilion was renovated and the lighting system was replaced, and as of 2010 renovation works on the entire facade are in progress.