oil on canvas, 124 x 112 cm, signed and dated lower right, in red, "NIVES K-K (19)69"

Research information

The artwork participated in the IV. Belgrade Triennial of Yugoslav Fine Art, Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade, 3. VII - 15. IX 1970. The work was exhibited at the "Art Encounter" exhibition, Subotica. The artwork participated in the Second Triennial in India in 1971, representing Yugoslavia, under the title "Alluvion de la duree".

Nives Kavurić Kurtović was born in Zagreb in 1938. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, in the class of Frano Baća, in 1962, and from then until 1967 she was an associate of the master workshop of Krsto Hegedušić. She worked as a professor at the same Academy from 1983 and attained the status of emeritus professor there. She was a member of the HAZU. She passed away in Zagreb in 2016. Two elements consistently present in her artistic creation are the affinity for line, which resulted in a significant drawing and graphic opus, and the deformed figuration, often of the human figure. She was prone to anecdotalism, phrases, and witticisms in the titles of her paintings, combined with existential themes, giving an impression of refined irony or poetics. In the first phase of her creation, she was close to surrealism for her unusual figuration, and art informel in saturated dark tones. She is already showing a characteristic inclination for organic, irregular shape. In the second half of the 1960s, she began to brighten her palette and refine her compositions. The canvases become fields of objects that intertwine in dreamy compositions. She also began to apply different materials to the canvas: thread, fabric, labels, paper. She also began to weave words and sentences into her works, which she continued until the end of her career. From the seventies, the human figure is almost always present, built with a more defined line of irregular, distorted contours. In the early eighties, she showed her propensity for experimenting with matter by painting on a roll of paper, or on frameless canvases, thus relating to her existential theme and sensitive recording of psychological states. Her painting “Nanosi trajanja” (Layers of Duration) belongs to her work in the second half of the 1960s. The poetic title, more open color palette, surfaces that suggest parts of the body and objects, as well as relief, linear color highlights, are characteristic of the author in this creative phase. Details of numerous impressions from human life are transformed into a vision of intimately experienced and artistically transformed moment. (F.G.)

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