Mirko Virius

Last updated • 2 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

Mirko Virius
Born(1889-10-28)October 28, 1889
Died1943 (aged 53 or 54)
NationalityCroatian
Known for Painting
Potter in the Village (1939) Mirko Virius - Potter in the Village.jpg
Potter in the Village (1939)

Mirko Virius (28 October 1889 – 1943) [1] was a Croatian naïve painter. He was one of the three most prominent members of the first generation of the Hlebine School.

Virius was born in the village of Đelekovec near Koprivnica, where he completed four years of primary school. In the First World War, he fought as an Austro-Hungarian soldier in Galicia. He was captured by Russians and made a forced laborer in Kiev, Kharkiv and the Ekaterinoslav iron plant.

He returned from Russia in the spring of 1918 and remained in Zagreb until the war ended. Virius then went home to Đelekovec, where he lived in penury and married a war widow with two children. He became a member of the progressive peasant movement, led by the Croatian Peasant Party. In 1936, the writer Mihovil Pavlek Miškina introduced him to the painters from Hlebine, Ivan Generalić and Franjo Mraz. They were the first generation of the Croatian naïve art movement, the Hlebine School.

Virius was a self-taught painter, who started painting late in life. In just three years (1936–39) he created an impressive body of work. He participated in the First Exhibition of Peasant Painters in Zagreb. Virius started with drawings and later made watercolors and oils. [1] His opus is dominated by expressive and bleak depictions of social themes - peasant labor, the soil, poor villagers - best shown in paintings such as The Beggar, The Plowing, The Red Bull, The Overturned Cart, The Flour Exchange Office. The prominent lines, the purity and elegance of his drawings prompted the critic Josip Depolo to call him "the Giotto of Podravina". [2] i. e. the conscience of croatian painting and modernity.

In the Second World War, Virius was arrested because of his Communist political activities and taken to a Nazi concentration camp in Zemun, where he was executed in 1943. [1] His tragic fate was immortalized by his friend Generalić, who painted The Death of Virius, one of his most famous paintings.

Works of Virius are part of the collections of the Croatian Museum of Naïve Art in Zagreb, the Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb and the Zander Collection in Cologne.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Naïve art</span> Art by a person lacking formal training

Naïve art is usually defined as visual art that is created by a person who lacks the formal education and training that a professional artist undergoes. When this aesthetic is emulated by a trained artist, the result is sometimes called primitivism, pseudo-naïve art, or faux naïve art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ivan Generalić</span> Croatian painter

Ivan Generalić was a Croatian painter in the naïve tradition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edo Murtić</span> Croatian painter

Edo Murtić was a painter from Croatia, best known for his lyrical abstraction and abstract expressionism style. He worked in a variety of media, including oil painting, gouache, graphic design, ceramics, mosaics, murals and theatrical set design. Murtić travelled and exhibited extensively in Europe and North America, gaining international recognition for his work, which can be found in museums, galleries and private collections worldwide. He was one of the founders of the group "March" (Mart) in 1956, and received many international awards. In 1958 Murtić participated in the three biggest events in the world of contemporary art: the Venice Biennale, the Carnegie Prize in Pittsburgh, and Documenta in Kassel. Interest in the art of Edo Murtić continues to grow, with retrospective exhibits in major museums.

Ivan Lacković Croata was a Croatian naive painter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Franjo Mraz</span> Croatian painter (1910–1981)

Franjo Mraz was a notable Croatian artist. Together with Ivan Generalić and Mirko Virius, he is considered a founder of Croatian naive art. His most famous paintings are "Oranje" ('Ploughing') and "Zima" ('Winter').

Hlebine is a municipality in Koprivnica-Križevci County in Croatia. It consists of two villages, Hlebine and Gabajeva Greda.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Croatian art of the 20th century</span>

Croatian art of the 20th century, that is visual arts within the boundaries of today's Croatia, can be divided into modern art up to the Second World War, and contemporary art afterwards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Krsto Hegedušić</span>

Krsto Hegedušić was a Croatian painter, illustrator and theater designer. His most famous paintings depict the harsh life of the Croatian peasantry in the manner of naive art. He was one of the founders of the Earth Group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vladimir Becić</span> Croatian painter

Vladimir Becić (1886–1954) was a Croatian painter, best known for his early work in Munich, which had a strong influence on the direction of modern art in Croatia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oskar Herman</span> Croatian-Jewish painter

Oskar Herman (1886–1974) was a Croatian-Jewish painter. He was one of the group of Croatian artists known as the Munich Circle, who had a strong influence on modern art in Croatia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Modern Gallery, Zagreb</span> Art museum in Zagreb, Croatia

Modern Gallery is a museum in Zagreb, Croatia that holds the most important and comprehensive collection of paintings, sculptures and drawings by 19th and 20th century Croatian artists. The collection numbers around 10,000 works of art, housed since 1934 in the historic Vranyczany Palace in the centre of Zagreb, overlooking the Zrinjevac Park. A secondary gallery is the Josip Račić Studio at Margaretska 3.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Menci Clement Crnčić</span> Croatian painter, printmaker, teacher and museum director

Menci Clement Crnčić was a Croatian painter, printmaker, teacher and museum director. He studied painting and drawing in Vienna and Munich, and trained in graphic arts in Vienna, studying etching and engraving. He was the first artist in the Croatian graphic tradition to abandon a strictly linear style and use tonal variation to create contrasting areas of light and shade.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Croatian Museum of Naïve Art</span> Art museum in Zagreb, Croatia

The Croatian Museum of Naïve Art is a fine art museum in Zagreb, Croatia dedicated to the work of naïve artists of the 20th century. The museum holdings consist of over 1,900 works of art - paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints, mainly by Croatians but also by other well-known international artists in the genre.

Matija Skurjeni (1898–1990) was a Croatian painter associated with the naïve art movement. He helped to found the Association of Independent Naïve Artists of Croatia and he is considered one of the most influential independent naïve artists. He has five rooms of his work at the Croatian Museum of Naïve Art and many of his works at the Matija Skurjeni Gallery in Zaprešić.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mijo Kovačić</span>

Mijo Kovačić is a Croatian painter and naïve artist. His works can be found at the Croatian Museum of Naïve Art in Zagreb.

Martin Mehkek was a Croatian painter. His works can be found at the Croatian Museum of Naïve Art in Zagreb. He is one of the most important members of the second generation of the "Hlebine School of Painting" and his works can be found in numerous private and public collections, galleries and museums. His typical motifs are mainly portraits of Roma, workers and farmers as well as scenes from everyday patriarchal life and the difficult life in the Podravina villages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marino Tartaglia</span> Croatian painter and art teacher

Marino Tartaglia was a Croatian painter and art teacher, for many years a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, Zagreb.

Edo Kovačević was a Croatian artist, best known for his colourful landscapes and views of suburban Zagreb. He worked mainly in oils and pastels, using subtle colour harmonies and lively brush strokes to bring out the natural beauty of ordinary subjects. Kovačević also designed theatrical stage sets for the Croatian National Theatre, the Drama Theatre and the Puppet Theatre, for many years, taught art at the Zagreb School of Crafts, and organized art exhibitions and installations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Art of Yugoslavia</span>

The art of Yugoslavia is the visual art created by a number of painters, sculptors and graphics artists in Yugoslavia.

Slavko Kopač was a French painter, sculptor and poet.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "28. listopada 1889. - Rođen Mirko Virius". magazin.hrt.hr (in Croatian). Croatian Radiotelevision. 28 October 2019. Retrieved 18 December 2020.
  2. Zdelar 2006, pp. 110–111.

Sources