44. Coastal Town (Omišalj) [cca 1938.]

The view of Omišlj with subtle coloristic shades is a first-class painting by Omer Mujadžić, a great Croatian artist always devoted to the highest standard of painting art. Being diligently kept in a private collection for decades, this painting remained unknown to the general public and even to the art community until today. This fact was also contributed by a well-known fact from Mujadžić's biography that he was reluctant to exhibit during more than seven decades of creative lifespan and during his lifetime held only three solo exhibitions (in Sarajevo, Zagreb and Tuzla), which were modestly illustrated catalogues. The conducted research of the painter's opus and archival materials related to the exhibition ''Half a Century of Croatian Art'' reveals that this view - under the title ''Omišalj''- was exhibited during the exhibition (1938.) in the Meštrović pavilion in Zagreb (today the Home of Croatian Fine Artists). Mujadžić rarely appeared in public, and in one of the rare interviews he gave just before the end of his decades-long leadership of the painting class and the great act at the Zagreb Academy (1931-1974), he himself succinctly said that he had gone through three phases in painting: through shape, color and tone, which means through a kind of expressionism with cubist hints during the 20s, then colorism of impressionist handwriting during the pre-war 30s and finally through the tonal phase of blue-silver shine during the post-war years until he could paint. This view of Omišlj, as well as the landscapes from the vicinity of Baška, Omišlj, Krk and Dalmatia, which have already been recognized, of course, belongs to the author's "second" phase when his sensitive observance was directed towards quieter content, towards softening the form and light and the color of coastal landscapes and intimate scenes of Muslim women in interiors of his childhood, which he, nota bene, already pushed to the top of Croatian painting production of his, but also our time. BRP

Dimensions

width 68 cm, height 55 cm

Description

oil on canvas, signed bottom left, in dark green, "Mujadžić"

Research information

The work was exhibited at the exhibition "Half a Century of Croatian Painting" in 1938 at the Meštrović Pavilion in Zagreb, under the title "Omišalj" on page 178.

Dating

cca 1938.

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