Exhibition THE ART OF THE HLEBINE SCHOOL

17.3.2006

From May 3 till August 28 2005, the CMNA played away, showing in the Klović Palace Gallery in Zagreb a showcase retrospective and critical exhibition entitled The Art of the Hlebine School. This featured a selection of the best artists and of their finest and most characteristic works (Ivan Generalić, Mraz, Virius, Gaži, Večenaj, Kovačić, Josip Generalić, Mehkek, Lacković, Vujčec, Švegović Budaj, Lončarić). We were able to exhibit some hundred pictures created in a period from the beginning of the 1930s up to the present day. Among the masterpieces of the Hlebine School, the exhibition featured what must be paradigms of the world and Croatian Naive, such as Generalić’s paintings Island (1940) and Unicorn House (1961), Virius’s Bride and Groom (1938), Gaži’s portrait Mate Bujina (1959), Kovačić’s Fowler (1963), Večenaj’s Evangelists at Calvary (1966), Jendraš (1973) by Josip Generalić, Lacković’s Great Autumn (1983). The art of the Hlebine School is without any doubt one of the most remarkable phenomena in modern Croatian art and the world Naive. The creative work of Ivan Generalić and his followers are the first examples of the Naive in Croatian and South East Europe. Apart from its exceptional historical importance, this work has indubitable artistic values, which we waned to show once again in this project. In particular we investigated and evaluated one of the most important special features of the stylistic and technical phenomena of this art – painting on glass. The development of this distinctive technique was shown, from the anonymous and religious ex voto paintings of the 19th century, via the works of the Croatian modern painters, Krsto Hegedušić, Kovačević and Željko Hegedušić, to the masters of the Hlebine School, who achieved superlative results in European 20th century painting precisely in this distinctive technique. An outline was given of the contributions of the leaders of modern art in the glass-painting technique – W. Kandinsky, G. Münter, A. Macke, V. Prax and others. The project consisted of an exhibition and a monographic catalogue, with parallel English and Croatian texts. Since a number of the key works of the Croatian Naive are actually held abroad, pictures that were not available for exhibition were presented in the illustrations. We mounted this exhibition in collaboration with several museum and gallery institutions and with many private collectors. As well as from the holdings of the CMNA, the project ncluded paintings from the Charlotte Zander Museum of Bönnigheim near Stuttgart; the Modern Gallery, Zagreb; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Rijeka; Koprivnica City Museum; the Gallery Hell of Munich; the Gallery, Hlebine, and many private collections. The project was supported financially by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia, the City Office for the Arts, Zagreb; Michael Milkovich, director emeritus, Museum of Fine Arts, St Petersburg, Florida, a group of American sponsors of Croatian origin and American friends of Croatian art. Vladimir Crnković was the author of the exhibition and the catalogue. Exhibition catalogue/monograph VLADIMIR CRNKOVIĆ: THE ART OF THE HLEBINE SCHOOL 21x24 cm, 260 pp., 133 colour reproductions Price: 100 kuna + p. and p. Exhibition poster THE ART OF THE HLEBINE SCHOOL offset in color, 70x100 cm Price: 30 kuna + p. and p.