References

Zdenko Tonkovic, Vladimir Becic - Retrospective (catalogue), Art Pavilion, Zagreb, 1984. Zdenko Tonkovic, Vladimir Becic (monograph), Croatian Art Historians' Society, Zagreb, 1988.

oil on canvas, 60.5 x 81.5 cm, signed and dated lower right, in brown, "Vlad. Becić (1)936."

Research information

The 1930s of the last century in Becić's opus are marked by brilliant coastal landscapes from the south of Croatia, especially Orebić and the Trpanj region, where he regularly stayed during free summer months and vehemently painted works that rank among the top achievements of Croatian visual landscape art in the first half of the 20th century. Coloristic realism and tonally attuned colors, surprisingly precise broad brush strokes with which he encloses the frame of the picture - in terms of factual and chromatic value - are the features of his painting which this painting vividly demonstrates.

Becić developed his inherent drawing talent upon arrival in Zagreb (1904), attending the private art school of Menci Cl. Crnčić and Bela Čikoš. A significant stimulus to his painting ambitions was the simultaneous inclusion of his watercolor in the First Yugoslav Exhibition in Belgrade, where his work was among the works of Kovačević, Crnčić, Čikoš, Iveković, Meštrović and others. A year later he breaks through at the exhibition of the Croatian Society of Arts in Zagreb and goes to Munich for further painting education, where he first attends the private school of Heinrich Knirr, and then the Munich Academy. He studied in the class of Hugo von Habermann, and together with Račić, Herman, Kraljević and Nasta Rojc he formed the so-called "Kroatische Schule", or art group in the history of Croatian art known as the "Munich Circle". Soon, like Račić and Kraljević, Becić followed their footsteps and went to Paris where from 1909 he attended the Grande Chaumiére academy. After returning, he stayed with his parents in Osijek, accepted orders for portraits and painted landscapes of the Slavonian plain. In 1912 he accepted a job as a teacher at the Art School in Belgrade. After the Balkan War he lived for some time in Bitola, and during the First World War he roamed the battlefield as a painter - reporter and lived for a short time in Rome and Paris. Upon returning to the country, Becić settled on his small estate in Blažuj near Sarajevo, where he gathered fellow painters (Vilko Šeferov and Karlo Mijić) and paved the way for his expressionist expression, which during the thirties will forever win the favor of the public and critics. Not breaking ties with Zagreb, Becić exhibited independently for the second time in the Ullrich Salon (1919.g.), at the VII. Spring Salon (1919/1920.g.) and at the International Exhibition of Modern Art in Geneva, for which he was also one of the selectors. In 1923 Becić settled in Zagreb, became a professor at the Art Academy, where he nurtured generations of young painters over three decades. From then on, in his oeuvre, the views of the Upper Town, the Zagreb Cathedral or the blossomed orchards of Kraljevac and Šestine would alternate with the landscapes of Blažuj and the coastal views of Dalmatia, where he regularly visited during the free summer months until the end of his life. The exhibition "Four" (Babić, Becić, Miše, Vanka) in the Art Salon, actually in the apartment of Osijek bookseller Radoslav Bačić, in 1928 began a new period in Becić's work, and thus in Croatian painting. The four soon became a "Group of Three" (1929) leading and determining the direction of Croatian visual art for several decades. Becić participated in more than 15 major exhibitions in Zagreb, while simultaneously exhibiting abroad (Philadelphia, Boston) and other cities in the homeland. From 1934 he was a regular member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts. (B.R.P.)

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