A retrospective exhibition of one of the most important figures of Croatian modern art – Vladimir Becić, was opened on Thursday, December 6th, at Klovićevi Dvori Gallery.
The authors of the exhibition concept are Professor Zvonko Maković, PhD, and curator Iva Sudec Andreis. In an attractive visual layout authors wish to present Becić’s paintings that have come back to Zagreb after thirty five years, since the last retrospective, and to offer some new details and interpretations that will give a revaluation of Becić’s extremely fruitful and rich oeuvre. Following the authors’ concept, works have been selected from many national, foreign, public and private collections with the aim to present Becić’s entire work.
Vladimir Becić is not by any means an unknown artist from the first half of twentieth century. Along with Miroslav Kraljević, Josip Račić and Oscar Herman, he was a part of the group that laid the foundations of Croatian modern art and forged closer links with Munich and Paris, than with Vienna. Therefore, these artists were known as “The Munich Circle”, which is how they are usually remembered in Croatian history of art and culture in general.
During the World War I, Becić was a reporter from the battlefields of Serbia and the south Balkans, reporting on the war for French illustrated magazines (L’Illustration). This aspect of his work gives a completely new picture of the artist, who later became a distinguished professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, an academician and honored middle-class painter.
This exhibition shows and interprets Vladimir Becić’s work in a completely new way, giving an important role to newly discovered works and archival material.
