41. Abandoned Heritages [1969.]

Frano Šimunović (Dicmo, 1908 – Zagreb, 1995) was a Croatian painter, best known as a landscape artist and the son of famous Croatian writer Dinko Šimunović. After dropping out of architecture studies, he enrolled in painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, where he was taught by Ljubo Babić and Jozo Kljaković. As the best student in 1934, he received a scholarship for a stay in Spain where he perfected his skills and copied the works of Velázquez and Goya for nine months. He organized his first exhibition a year later in Zagreb. During this period, he was inspired by Van Gogh and painted the Dalmatian landscape in intense colors. During World War II he created drawings with a camp motif. In the 1950s, he translated the landscape of his native Zagora – the rocks and piles– onto canvas, which resulted in his most famous paintings. In his later works he refined and sublimated the palette and summed up geometric elements. He married Ksenija Kantoci, a sculptor, and together they donated 51 works to the National Museum of Modern Art. The painting Abandoned Heritage (1969) horizontally displays the harsh stone landscape of Zagora from the air during a period when Šimunović was striving for simplicity. Although he does not deviate from object reality depiction, in the 60s he abstracted and simplified the recognizable painter's motif, approaching abstraction. A bright palette of colors dominates, through which irregular dark thick contours lines of the Dalmatian karst are carved.

Dimensions

width 115 cm, height 75 cm

Description

oil on canvas, signed at the bottom right, in black, "F. Šim"

Dating

1969.

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