3. Three Men Playing Cards [1900. - 1910.]

The Montenegrin-Bosnian painter Spiridon Špiro Bocarić, like his older brother Anastas Špiro Bocarić, obtained his painting education in Venice at the Regio Istituto de Belle Arti (1894-1895). Until the 1920s he lived and worked in Mostar and Sarajevo, where, it can be said, he left the most significant traces of his painting work. Primarily a series of portraits of reputable Sarajevo citizens, including the mayor Nezir Škaljić, and genre scenes from the everyday life of traders from Baščaršija, which are now preserved in the Museum (of the city) of Sarajevo. Until the 1990s, several of his portrait paintings and cityscapes of Sarajevo were displayed in the permanent setup of the Sarajevo Museum. Spiridon Špiro Bocarić - unlike his brother Anastas Špiro - started to neglect painting from the mid-1920s and, in addition to journalistic work, was mostly devoted to the collection of folk crafts, which led to his move to Banja Luka and the establishment of the Ethnographic Museum of Vrbaska Banovina in 1930. As a director, he managed the museum, photographed and published catalogs and even touristic brochures, he was more a museum worker than a painter. In the summer of 1941, he was arrested and taken to Gospić, where he soon tragically died in the nearby Jadovno camp. The painting on display here is also from his series of Sarajevo genre scenes, depicting three men engaged in conversation in an unidentified space. It is characterized by Bocarić's precise observation and charm of direct painting interpretation of both their physiognomies, as well as the picturesque clothing, in fact, the folk costumes of central Bosnia. The painting was created using a technique of small strokes in vibrant colors and is realistic in every detail. It's a scene devoid of posing, capturing a break of not too tired merchants, one of them counting, probably "market", and two colorfully dressed ones calmly conversing. We would say, a moment of reality frozen by the painter's virtuoso hand.

Dimensions

width 90.5 cm, height 72.5 cm

Description

oil on canvas, signed lower right, in blue, (in Cyrillic) "Š. Bocarić"

Dating

1900. - 1910.

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