74. Motif from Čiovo (Ruins of the City) [1946.-1950.]

1870, Split - 1953, Split

Estimate

EUR 6.000 - 9.000

Sold

EUR 6.000

Session

Tue, 11 June 2024 20:00

This picture, from Vidović's original title "Motif from Čiovo", belongs to the post-war period of the painter's creation. It was a time, we all know, when no one was lacking in life's hardships, not even Vidović. The old apartment and attic studio near the church of St. Duje, where he accomplished a fascinating series of paintings dedicated to the interior of the Split Cathedral and a series of unique still lifes with beloved objects and works of art that filled his living and working space for decades, he had to abandon during the Italian occupation of Split (1942.). Neither did the following government find his pulpits, saints and church interiors pleasing, so he stayed living at the outskirts of the city near the old "Hajduk's" playing field, far from the port and "ancient" Split. However, Vidović stoically endured all hardships and rebukes and continued to paint on the balcony of the studio, on Čiovo, in the Trogir Pasike, in Split's Poljud and Vestibulu, as he did not forget what he once saw and his legs served him until the fatal hip fracture towards the end of winter 1950. Igor Zidić, the most knowledgeable theorist of Vidović's portfolio and Croatian art modernist, wrote about the paintings created in the post-war years in the catalog of the third, most extensive retrospective exhibition of the painter's works (444) - prepared and set on two floors of the most respected Zagreb exhibition space, today known Gallery "Klovićevi dvori" in 1987. - writes: "The palette was obscured by a network of skimpy space. They lost two other motifs: the interior of the studio and St. Duje. In the small and crowded studio, there was no longer yesterday's airiness". Zidić continues: "(…) He could not choose much: he had a motif in the window and a multitude of motifs in his memory. He started living in the past and seeing material of his own absence - or: his own presence in the absent - we can attribute the disturbing, metaphysical gaping of the space in his last paintings." After this anthological retrospective of the painter's portfolio, which also had the subtitle "Emanuel Vidović" in Zagreb, for Emanuel Vidović in Split, its author Igor Zidić continued to advocate for the opening of the Gallery "Emanuel Vidović" in Split, which we witnessed only in 1999. In addition, with his high professional interest, he continued to work on the revaluation and contextualization of the painter's works, which resulted in 2018 in his critical retrospective "Emanuel Vidović - pasatist and modernist" in the Zagreb Art Pavilion. Furthermore, for allowing us to quote his lines beside Artmark's auction schedule for the painting "Motif from the Čiovo", we warmly thank him. BRP

References

Igor Zidić, Emanuel Vidović / Retrospective exhibition, Museum Space, Zagreb, 1987., pp. 26-29

Dimensions

width 68 cm, height 55 cm

Description

ulje na platnu, signed lower right, in red, "E. Vidović"

Dating

1946.-1950.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

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