oil on hardboard, 46 x 73 cm, signed and dated bottom left in Cyrillic, white, ''KONJOVIĆ (19)81''

Research information

The work was exhibited in Sombor and in Klovićevi dvori in 1983, in whose catalog it was also published. The work is reproduced and inventoryed in the catalogue raissoné "Milan Konjović", Irma Lang, Sombor, Cicero, Belgrade, 2010., on page 335., cat. no. 3068, under the title "Fatamorgana I".

Milan Konjović (Sombor, Serbia, 1898 - Sombor, Serbia, 1993) was a Serbian painter, theatre scenographer and costumographer. Already as a high school student, he exhibited his first works and distinguished himself as an athlete and fencer. Because of the onset of World War I, he was mobilized immediately after high school. After the war, he studied for two semesters at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in the class of V. Bukovac. He then developed under the Czech avant-garde painter Jan Zrzavy and in Paris continued his education with post-Cubists and Cézannes André Lhote. He worked in Prague, Berlin, Dresden, Vienna. In Paris from 1924 to 1932, he exhibited and achieved significant success with his blue phase in which his painterly maturity began. He then returned to Sombor where he painted his native land, landscapes and people in the red phase. During this period, he occasionally went to Mline, Cavtat and Dubrovnik with his family, where some of his best paintings were made. During World War II, he was in captivity. After his return to his hometown, he created his oil pastels in the gray phase, which dominated interiors and portraits. From the 50s, his coloristic phase began, dominated by pure intense color. Then for two decades, from 1960 to 1980, he worked on the associative phase of intense coloration, with quick and sharp brush strokes. Then followed a calmer phase of variations on the theme of Byzantine art. He was a very prolific painter and left behind more than 6000 works - oils, pastels, watercolors, tempera, drawings... He influenced Croatian modern painting, especially in Dubrovnik, with his intense chromaticism. He was a member of the art group "Independent" and initiated the event "Art Autumn" in Sombor. He donated a collection of 500 selected works to his hometown Sombor, which are on display today in the Milan Konjović Gallery.

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