Modern Gallery, Zagreb
Encyclopedia
Modern Gallery is a museum in Zagreb
, Croatia
that holds the most important and comprehensive collection of painting
s, sculpture
s and drawing
s by 19th and 20th century Croatian artists. The collection numbers around 10,000 works of art, housed since 1934 in the historic Vranyczany Palace in the centre of Zagreb, overlooking the Zrinjevac Park. A secondary gallery is the Josip Račić Studio at Margaretska 3.
.
In 1899, Izidor Kršnjavi, gave a presentation to the Art Society in Zagreb, with the idea of establishing the Gallery. His proposal was recorded in the Social Exhibitions Statute of 1901. In the spring of 1905, to mark the Society’s 30th anniversary, three works of art were bought for the future holdings of the Modern Gallery. That year, 1905, is considered to be the official date the Gallery was founded, due to the holdings which were put together at the time. However, the collection grew gradually and it was not open for public viewing until 1914, in a single room of today’s Museum of Arts and Crafts building, where it was available only to those who showed a special interest in it.
As the collection expanded, the Gallery moved to its current building, the Vranyczany Palace on Zrinjevac Park in 1934 and it has been there, with a pause during World War II
, up until the present day. The Vranyczany Palace was designed by the Viennese architect Otto Hofer
, and constructed in 1882 by Ferdo Kondrat for Baron Lujo Vranyczany. Since the end of 19th century the building has changed ownership frequently, and has been restored several times. Through the years, the Vranyczany building has entertained some well-known figures in Croatia's cultural, political and economic life. From its balcony in November 1884, Bishop Josip Juraj Strossmayer
watched the celebrations organised in his honour on the occasion of the opening of the gallery named after him. The splendid receptions of the past have now been replaced by the contemplative atmosphere of Zagreb's gallery of modern art.
The Palace underwent a complete renovation between 1993 and 2005, when the current exhibition was opened to the public. Two floors of the palace have become a modern-equipped gallery showing the permanent collection of Croatian modern painting and sculpture. In the completely refurbished historic rooms, the Modern Gallery presents "Two Hundred Years of Croatian Fine Arts (1800-2000)", a representative selection of 650-700 of the best works by painters, sculptors and medal makers. The Modern Gallery has become the best known, and most complete Croatian modern art museum. Retrospectives and monographic exhibitions of works by the most prominent Croatian artists have been taking place there since the end of 1960s, as well as theme exhibitions of Croatian and European modern art.
In addition to its permanent collection, the Modern Gallery also holds special exhibits. In 2009, a multi-sensory Tactile Gallery MG, was opened to help vision-impaired visitors experience major Croatian modern paintings and sculptures through touch and sound. The Modern Gallery’s holdings continue to expand and once a year, a New Acquisitions exhibition is held.
A new multi-media exhibition entitled “Ikonografija grada u hrvatskom slikarstvu u prvoj polovici 20 st.“ (Iconography of Towns in Croatian Paintings from the First Half of the 20th Century), was opened to the public in April 2010. It presents the viewer with a motif of a town in paintings, drawing, graphics, art photography; on posters and film, and in literature and music. The exhibit covers over 150 artefacts including works of the most significant Croatian artists of the 20th century, from the Munich circle to socialism and the beginnings of the abstract art.
Artists represented in the permanent collection of the Modern Gallery include:
In addition to the permanent display, occasional exhibitions of local and foreign artists are also held. For example, from December 2008 to March 2009, the first complete retrospective of Josip Račić's works was on display on the first floor of the gallery; Račić is one of the most important representatives of Croatian Modernist painting.
The gallery publishes monographs on artists and their works in a catalogue series called Modern Croatian Art, and in other publications.
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 ...
that holds the most important and comprehensive collection of painting
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
s, sculpture
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
s and drawing
Drawing
Drawing is a form of visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, markers, styluses, and various metals .An artist who...
s by 19th and 20th century Croatian artists. The collection numbers around 10,000 works of art, housed since 1934 in the historic Vranyczany Palace in the centre of Zagreb, overlooking the Zrinjevac Park. A secondary gallery is the Josip Račić Studio at Margaretska 3.
History
The Modern Gallery, originally the National Gallery for Croatian Art, dates from the early 1900s, when it was founded by the Art Society with paintings and sculptures acquired by their members, including a donation from Bishop StrossmayerJosip Juraj Strossmayer
Josip Juraj Strossmayer was a Croatian politician, Roman Catholic bishop and benefactor.-Early life and rise as a cleric:...
.
In 1899, Izidor Kršnjavi, gave a presentation to the Art Society in Zagreb, with the idea of establishing the Gallery. His proposal was recorded in the Social Exhibitions Statute of 1901. In the spring of 1905, to mark the Society’s 30th anniversary, three works of art were bought for the future holdings of the Modern Gallery. That year, 1905, is considered to be the official date the Gallery was founded, due to the holdings which were put together at the time. However, the collection grew gradually and it was not open for public viewing until 1914, in a single room of today’s Museum of Arts and Crafts building, where it was available only to those who showed a special interest in it.
As the collection expanded, the Gallery moved to its current building, the Vranyczany Palace on Zrinjevac Park in 1934 and it has been there, with a pause during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, up until the present day. The Vranyczany Palace was designed by the Viennese architect Otto Hofer
Otto Hofer
Otto Hofer is a Swiss equestrian. He won an individual bronze medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, and a silver medal with the Swiss team. He won a silver medal with the Swiss team at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul.-References:...
, and constructed in 1882 by Ferdo Kondrat for Baron Lujo Vranyczany. Since the end of 19th century the building has changed ownership frequently, and has been restored several times. Through the years, the Vranyczany building has entertained some well-known figures in Croatia's cultural, political and economic life. From its balcony in November 1884, Bishop Josip Juraj Strossmayer
Josip Juraj Strossmayer
Josip Juraj Strossmayer was a Croatian politician, Roman Catholic bishop and benefactor.-Early life and rise as a cleric:...
watched the celebrations organised in his honour on the occasion of the opening of the gallery named after him. The splendid receptions of the past have now been replaced by the contemplative atmosphere of Zagreb's gallery of modern art.
The Palace underwent a complete renovation between 1993 and 2005, when the current exhibition was opened to the public. Two floors of the palace have become a modern-equipped gallery showing the permanent collection of Croatian modern painting and sculpture. In the completely refurbished historic rooms, the Modern Gallery presents "Two Hundred Years of Croatian Fine Arts (1800-2000)", a representative selection of 650-700 of the best works by painters, sculptors and medal makers. The Modern Gallery has become the best known, and most complete Croatian modern art museum. Retrospectives and monographic exhibitions of works by the most prominent Croatian artists have been taking place there since the end of 1960s, as well as theme exhibitions of Croatian and European modern art.
Collection
The Modern Gallery in Zagreb holds the richest and most important collection of Croatian art of the 19th and 20th centuries. Today the holding numbers around 10,000 works of art including paintings, sculptures, drawings and graphics, medallions and medals, as well as photographs and new media. More than 700 Croatian works of art belonging to the 19th and 20th century are on display. The exhibition extends across two floors of the Palace and the main staircase, displaying the works of individual artists, and also showing their place in the Croatian modern art scene and within modern Croatian society in general. According to Biserka Rauter Plančić, the current Director of the Modern Gallery, "The Gallery’s mission is to record, as much as possible, the events and changes in Croatian art which took place over the two centuries of building and breaking down the perception of the world, as well as the perception of workmanship."In addition to its permanent collection, the Modern Gallery also holds special exhibits. In 2009, a multi-sensory Tactile Gallery MG, was opened to help vision-impaired visitors experience major Croatian modern paintings and sculptures through touch and sound. The Modern Gallery’s holdings continue to expand and once a year, a New Acquisitions exhibition is held.
A new multi-media exhibition entitled “Ikonografija grada u hrvatskom slikarstvu u prvoj polovici 20 st.“ (Iconography of Towns in Croatian Paintings from the First Half of the 20th Century), was opened to the public in April 2010. It presents the viewer with a motif of a town in paintings, drawing, graphics, art photography; on posters and film, and in literature and music. The exhibit covers over 150 artefacts including works of the most significant Croatian artists of the 20th century, from the Munich circle to socialism and the beginnings of the abstract art.
Artists represented in the permanent collection of the Modern Gallery include:
- Ljubo BabićLjubo BabićLjubo Babić , was a Croatian painter, graphic artist, theatrical set and costume designer, teacher, art historian, critic, and museum curator. As an artist, he worked in a variety of media including oils, tempera, watercolour, drawing, etching, and lithography...
- Vojin BakićVojin BakićVojin Bakić was a prominent Croatian sculptor of Serbian descent.-Work and Artistic Career:Bakić was an important figure, particularly in the 50’s and 60’s Croatian contemporary art scene, and collaborated with the group EXAT-51 and the Nove tendencije movement...
- Petar Barišić
- Ivo Deković
- Marijan Detoni
- Ivo Dulčić
- Dušan DžamonjaDušan DžamonjaDušan Džamonja was a contemporary Croatian sculptor of Macedonian origin.Džamonja's work shows a tendency towards technical and formative experiments, reducing form to the dynamic and intense shapes of symbolical meaning...
- Vladimir BecićVladimir BecićVladimir Becić was a Croatian painter, best known for his early work in Munich, which had a strong influence on the direction of modern art in Croatia...
- F Bilak
- Vlaho BukovacVlaho BukovacVlaho Bukovac was a Croatian painter.-Life:- Early life :Bukovac was born Biagio Faggioni in the town of Cavtat south of Dubrovnik in Dalmatia...
- Vladimir Gašparić Gapo
- Vilko GecanVilko GecanVilko Gecan was a Croatian artist, influential in the Zagreb modern art scene of the 1920s and 30s. He is best known for his expressionist paintings and drawings, and for his contributions to the avantgarde magazine Zenit. He showed his work in many solo and group exhibitions in Croatia and abroad...
- Josip GeneralićJosip GeneralićJosip Generalić was a Croatian painter. His works can be found at the Croatian Museum of Naïve Art in Zagreb.-References:...
- Oton GlihaOton GlihaOton Gliha was a Croatian painter of Slovenian descent. He was born on May 21, 1914 in Črnomelj, Slovenia, in a Slovenian family originating from Istra, . The families residence was dictated by his father's civil service. Until the age of ten, he lived in Slavonia, , and later moved to Zagreb...
- Krsto HegedušićKrsto HegedušicKrsto Hegedušić was a Croatian painter, illustrator and theater designer. His most famous paintings depict the harsh life of the Croatian peasantry in the manner of naive art...
- Ljubo Ivančić
- Franz Jaschke
- Vasilije Josip Jordan
- Leo Junek
- Vjekoslav KarasVjekoslav KarasVjekoslav Karas was a Croatian painter, considered a pioneer of a new era of Croatian painting and art in general....
- Ivo KerdićIvo KerdićIvo Kerdić was a Croatian sculptor, best known for his metalwork and medallions.- Biography :Ivo Kerdić was born 19 May 1881 in Davor, a small village near Slavonski Brod, at that time in Austria-Hungary, now Croatia. The son of a wood merchant, he spent 4 years in elementary school, before going...
- Zlatko Keser
- Josip KlaricaJosip KlaricaJosip Klarica was born in 1946 in Belgrade, Serbia. He is an internationally acclaimed artist working in the mediums of film and photography. He lives and works in Zagreb, Croatia....
- Slavko Kopač
- Kuzma Kovačić
- Miroslav KraljevićMiroslav KraljevicMiroslav Kraljević was a Croatian painter, printmaker and sculptor, active in the early part of the 20th century. He is one of the founders of modern art in Croatia....
- Frano KršinićFrano KršinićFrano Kršinić was a renowned Croatian sculptor. Along with Ivan Meštrović and Antun Augustinčić he is considered one of the three most important Croatian sculptors of the 20th century...
- Vatroslav Kuliš
- Ferdinand Kulmer
- Ivan Lesjak
- Tihomir Lončar
- Nikola Mašić
- Ivan MeštrovićIvan MeštrovicIvan Meštrović was a Croatian and Yugoslav sculptor and architect born in Vrpolje, Croatia...
- Matko Mijić
- Karlo Mijić
- Robert Frangeš MihanovićRobert Frangeš MihanovicRobert Frangeš-Mihanović was a Croatian sculptor. He was a pioneer of modern Croatian sculpture. He was also one of the initiators and organizers of the artistic life in Zagreb at the turn of the centuries.-Life:...
- Jerolim MišeJerolim MišeJerolim Miše , was a Croatian painter, teacher, and art critic. He painted portraits, still lifes and landscapes of his native Dalmatia. A member of the Group of Three, Group of Four, and the Independent Group of Artists....
- Antun Motika
- Edo MurtićEdo MurticEdo Murtić was a painter from Croatia, best known for his lyrical abstraction and abstract expressionism style. He worked in a variety of media, including oil painting, gouache, graphic design, ceramics, mosaics, murals and theatrical set design...
- Sofija Naletilić Penavuša
- Zoltan Novak
- Mladen Pejaković
- Ivan PiceljIvan PiceljIvan Picelj was a contemporary Croatian painter, sculptor and graphic designer.Picelj developed a specific variation of geometric abstraction in Croatian painting by using primary colours and by reducing the shapes to geometric elements. He made sculptures and reliefs in wood and in metal...
- Dimitrije PopovićDimitrije PopovicDimitrije Popović is an eminent Montenegrin and Croatian painter, sculptor, art critic and philosopher born in Cetinje, Montenegro, on March 4, 1951...
- Zlatko Prica
- Ferdo Quiquerez
- Mirko RackiMirko RackiMirko Rački was a Croatian painter.Rački was born in Novi Marof, and graduated from the Teacher's Academy in Zagreb. He then went to the private art school of H. Strehblow in Vienna, then studied at the Academy in Prague under Vlaho Bukovac and in Vienna under W. Unger...
- Josip RačićJosip RačićJosip Račić was a Croatian painter in the early 20th century. Although he died very young , and his work was mostly created when a student, he is one of the best known of the modern Croatian painters...
- Slava RaškajSlava RaškajSlava Raškaj was a painter considered to be the greatest Croatian watercolorist of the late 19th and early 20th century. Deaf since birth, Raškaj was schooled in Vienna and Zagreb, where her mentor was the Croatian painter Bela Čikoš Sesija. In the 1890s her works were exhibited around Europe,...
- Ivan RendićIvan RendicIvan Rendić was a Croatian sculptor.He began sculpting early on in life, thanks to the stoneworking tradition of the island of Brač, where he was raised. He finished arts school in Venice in 1871 and afterwards became a part of the Fioretine sculpting atelier...
- Ivo Režek
- Branko Ružić
- Đuro SederĐuro SederĐuro Seder is a Croatian painter. He lives and works in Zagreb, Croatia.At the beginning of his career he worked as an illustrator, image editor and designer at various magazines...
- Miljenko StančićMiljenko StančićMiljenko Stančić , was a Croatian painter and graphic artist. He is famous for his vast painting oeuvre of Varaždin cityscapes....
- Milan Steiner
- Dalibor Stošić
- Mihael Stroy
- Gabrijel Stupica
- Ivo Šebalj
- Zlatko ŠulentićZlatko ŠulentićZlatko Šulentić was a Croatian painter of landscapes and portraits.He was one of the second generation of Croatian modern painters, a follower of the Munich Circle painters. He also studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich, and began to develop his own version of expressionism and cubism in...
- Marino TartagliaMarino TartagliaMarino Tartaglia was a Croatian painter and art teacher, for many years a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, Zagreb.From 1948 he was a member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts. He received the Vladimir Nazor Award for lifetime achievement in the arts in 1964.- Biography :Marino...
- Marija Ujević
- Milivoj Uzelac
- Vladimir Varlaj
- Emanuel VidovićEmanuel VidovićEmanuel Vidović , was a painter and graphic artist from Split, Croatia.Emanuel Vidović was instrumental in bringing the modern art ideas to Split. From 1900 he was an active member of the Literary-Art Club, and in 1907, together with Ivan Meštrović, he founded the Medulić Society...
- Zlatan Vrkljan
- Josip Zanki
- Ivan Zasche
In addition to the permanent display, occasional exhibitions of local and foreign artists are also held. For example, from December 2008 to March 2009, the first complete retrospective of Josip Račić's works was on display on the first floor of the gallery; Račić is one of the most important representatives of Croatian Modernist painting.
The gallery publishes monographs on artists and their works in a catalogue series called Modern Croatian Art, and in other publications.
See also
- Museum of Contemporary Art, ZagrebMuseum of Contemporary Art, ZagrebThe Museum of Contemporary Art is a contemporary art museum located on Dubrovnik Avenue in Zagreb, Croatia. It is the biggest and most modern museum in the country....
- The Strossmayer Gallery of Old MastersThe Strossmayer Gallery of Old MastersThe Strossmayer Gallery of Old Masters is a fine art museum in Zagreb, Croatia exhibiting the collection donated to the city by Bishop Josip Juraj Strossmayer in 1884...
- Croatian Museum of Naïve ArtCroatian Museum of Naïve ArtThe Croatian Museum of Naïve Art is a fine art museum in Zagreb, Croatia dedicated to the work of naïve artists of the 20th century. The museum holdings consist of over 1,850 works of art - paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints, mainly by Croatians but also by other well-known international...