oil on canvas, 80 x 75 cm, signed and dated lower left, in black, "Vladimir Becić (1)929"

Research information

The artwork is accompanied by expertise and analysis from art historian Igor Zidic.

PROVENANCE

significant private collection, Zagreb.

The twenties of the last century in Becić's opus are marked on one hand with the Sezannist landscapes of bright colors created in Blažuj, the painter's summer retreat above Sarajevo, and almost sculptural nudes placed in open spaces painted in a post-cubist style. In fact, these are a kind of Euclidean tonal modeling's of earthy color tones that he mainly created in Zagreb from 1923. Becić's unique "stilkunst" on these nudes – the roots of which go back to the painter's schooling years in Munich (1905 – 1909), and the sense already expressed then for both the materiality of form and tonal modeling – was early recognized and praised by eminent critics of that time, for example, Vladimir Lunaček known as "Cave criticuma", who diligently wrote reviews of exhibitions at the Spring Salon, the Group of Croatian Artists and Ullrich Art Salon, where Becić regularly participated with landscapes from Blažuj, nudes and still lifes as well as Zagreb views and landscapes then rural Šestine and Kraljevac. The oil painting "Two Acts", signed by the author in 1929, thus, at a time when Becić had already been a professor of painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb for six years, goes in line with his first-rate creations from the so-called post-cubist section of his opus. The tonally attuned palette, surprisingly precise and broad brush strokes with which he shaped the voluminous figures of the female body in factographic and chromatic value - are features of his painting that this painting vividly demonstrates. The further course of Becić's creativity took place in the circle of "Four: Babić, Becić, Miša, Vanka" who, with the departure of Maksimilijan Vanka to the USA (1930), became the "Group of Three", a three-member group of painters who for decades largely led and determined the direction of Croatian painting in the first half of the 20th century. BRP

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