Ivan Meštrović was a Croatian and Yugoslav sculptor, architect, and writer. He was the most prominent modern Croatian sculptor and a leading artistic personality in contemporary Zagreb. He studied at Pavle Bilinić's Stone Workshop in Split and at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, where he was formed under the influence of the Secession. He traveled throughout Europe and studied the works of ancient and Renaissance masters, especially Michelangelo, and French sculptors Auguste Rodin, Antoine Bourdelle and Aristide Maillol. He was the initiator of the national-romantic group Medulić. During the First World War, he lived in emigration. After the war, he returned to Croatia and began a long and fruitful period of sculpture and pedagogical work. In 1942 he emigrated to Italy, in 1943 to Switzerland and in 1947 to the United States. He was a professor of sculpture at the Syracuse University and from 1955 at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana.
Vlaho Bukovac was a Croatian painter and academic. His life and work were eclectic, for the artist pursued his career in a variety of locales and his style changed greatly over the course of that career. He is probably best known for his 1887 nude Une fleur, which he created during his French period and which received attention in various reviews and publications during his lifetime. Bukovac was the court painter for Obrenović dynasty, Karađorđević dynasty and Petrović-Njegoš dynasty. In Zagreb, he is probably best known as the painter of the 1895 theatre curtain in the Croatian National Theatre.
Slava Raškaj was a Croatian painter, considered to be the greatest Croatian watercolorist of the late 19th and early 20th century. Deaf since birth, Raškaj was schooled in Vienna and Zagreb, where her mentor was the renowned Croatian painter Bela Čikoš Sesija. In the 1890s her works were exhibited around Europe, including at the 1900 Expo in Paris. In her twenties Raškaj was diagnosed with acute depression and was institutionalised for the last three years of her life before dying in 1906 from tuberculosis in Zagreb. The value of her work was largely overlooked by art historians in the following decades, but in the late 1990s and early 2000s interest in her work was revived.
Bela Čikoš Sesija was a Croatian Symbolist painter, art teacher and one of the founders of the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb.
The Art pavilion in Zagreb is an art gallery in Zagreb, Croatia. The pavilion is located on the Lenuci Horseshoe, Lower town area of the city, south of Nikola Šubić Zrinski Square, on the northern side of the King Tomislav Square which flanks the Zagreb Central Station. Established in 1898, it is the oldest gallery in the Southeast Europe and the only purpose-built gallery in Zagreb designed specifically to accommodate large scale exhibitions.
Dimitrije Popović is an eminent Montenegrin and Croatian painter, sculptor, art critic and philosopher born in Cetinje, Montenegro. He attended elementary and high school in his hometown and graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1976 in the class of professor Šime Perić.
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.
Miroslav Kraljević was a Croatian painter, printmaker and sculptor, active in the early part of the 20th century. He is one of the founders of modern art in Croatia.
The Strossmayer Gallery of Old Masters is a fine art museum in Zagreb, Croatia exhibiting the collection donated to the city by Bishop Josip Juraj Strossmayer in 1884. Located at 11 Nikola Šubić Zrinski Square, it forms part of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
The Museum of Contemporary Art is a contemporary art museum located on Dubrovnik Avenue in Zagreb, Croatia. It is the biggest and most modern museum in the country. Vesna Meštrić is current director of MSU, replacing Zdenka Badovinac in late 2023 first temporarily and as of 2024 officially.
Josip Račić was a Croatian painter in the early 20th century. Although he died very young, and his work was mostly created during his student years, he is one of the best known modern Croatian painters. Today, Račić is regarded as one of the most important representatives of Croatian modern painting.
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.
The Museum of Fine Arts, is an art museum in Split, Croatia containing works from the 14th century up to the present day providing an overview of the artistic developments in the local art scene. The museum was founded in 1931, and has a permanent exhibition of paintings and sculptures that includes works by major Croatian artists such as Vlaho Bukovac, Mato Celestin Medović, Branislav Dešković, Ivan Meštrović, Emanuel Vidović and Ignjat Job. The museum also has an extensive collection of icons, and holds special exhibits of works by contemporary artists.
Mato Celestin Medović was a Croatian painter. Best known for his large paintings depicting historical scenes, and his series of colourful landscapes and seascapes of his native Dalmatia, Medović is one of the earliest modern Croatian painters.
The Filip Trade Collection is a large private collection of contemporary Croatian art. The collection is a subsidiary of Filip Trade, a distribution company with its offices located in the capital city of Croatia, Zagreb. The offices and collection are currently undergoing a move and will soon be relocated in a purpose built venue in the Črnomerec district of Zagreb, Croatia. The collection was founded in the nineties with the acquisition of the Drystone Walls graphic by artist Oton Gliha, an acquisition suggested by the Croatian art critic and connoisseur Radovan Beck. Nowadays, the collection holds works of Croatian artists created from the 1950s, up to today. The earliest piece in the collection dates back to 1949 and is the bronze sculpture Bara with a Chicken by the Croatian sculptor Ivan Kožarić.
Jerolim Miše, was a Croatian painter, teacher, and art critic. He painted portraits, still lifes and landscapes of his native Dalmatia. A member of the Group of Three, Group of Four, and the Independent Group of Artists.
Zlatko Šulentić was a Croatian painter of landscapes and portraits.
Vilko Gecan was a Croatian painter, influential in the Zagreb modern art scene of the 1920s and 1930s. He is best known for his expressionist paintings and drawings, and for his contributions to the local avantgarde magazine Zenit. He showed his work in many solo and group exhibitions in Croatia and abroad. In the Zagreb Spring Salon of the 1920s, he participated with Milivoj Uzelac, Marijan Trepše and Vladimir Varlaj, who together were known as the "Group of Four" or "The Prague Four". Trained in Prague, works of these young painters brought new expressionist ideas that went on to dominate the 1920s Croatian art scene.
Milivoj Uzelac (1897–1977) was a painter influential in the Zagreb modern art scene of the 1920s and 30s. During the Zagreb Spring Salon of the 1920s, he participated with Vilko Gecan, Marijan Trepše and Vladimir Varlaj as the Group of Four. Uzelac spent much of his professional life in France, and is best known for his portraits and interior scenes with bohemian characters.
