The European Contexts

The works of four distinguished 20^th century Serbian artists – Petar Dobrović, Sava Šumanović, Milan Konjović and Bogdan Šuput – are on display in the Matica Srpska Gallery in Novi Sad, in the exhibition European Contexts, which reflects the high caliber of these artists’ work through a modern interpretation of national art in the first half of the 20^th century.

By Vesna Knežević Baletić

Four great names in Serbian painting during the interwar period are on display at the Matica Srpska Gallery in Novi Sad, as part of the exhibition European Contexts – Dobrović, Šumanović, Konjović, Šuput, which is representative of the high quality of these artists’ work. The exhibition opened on August 19^th and will run until October 19^th 2009. The exhibition presents the works of four distinguished 20^th century Serbian artists – Petar Dobrović (1890-1942), Sava Šumanović (1896-1942), Milan Konjović (1898-1993) and Bogdan Šuput (1914-1942). These artists’ work left a mark on early-20^thcentury art from Vojvodina and on Serbian fine art in general.

The exhibition presents 42 works of art – 36 paintings and six graphics from the Matica Srpska Gallery collection, including accompanying material about the life and work of the presented artists. The exhibition was organised under the auspices of the Executive Council AP Vojvodina. Jat New Review spoke with the exhibition’s curator Tijana Palkovljević, M.A.:

- Why have these four Serbian artists been chosen for this remarkable exhibition?

- We wanted to present works from the Matica Srpska Gallery collection that have remained in storage since the creation of the permanent exhibitions, but we also wanted to offer a more contemporary interpretation of national art from the first half of the 20^th century. We decided on a group exhibition of four artists in order to underscore the European context of their art. These four painters marked the art of the mentioned period, and given that they moved along the same geographical and chronological coordinates and that their works are collected in the Matica Srpska Gallery collection, we have placed them together in this exhibition.

- What do these artists have in common and what differentiates them most?

- Their common point is the land from which they originate, although they are from different towns in Pannonia (Pečuj, Vinkovci, Sombor, Sisak). They also share similar educations from grammar and art schools in Central Europe (Pečuj, Zemun, Novi Sad, Budapest, Zagreb). However, their most important link is that they lived and studied in the most remarkable art centre – Paris. These artists spent time in the French capital, and they had similar experiences; each artist improved his work, socialised with companions, visited galleries, wrote art reviews and held exhibitions, either independently or as part of group exhibitions. They became acquainted with current art ideas and movements, adapting them to their own sensibility, transposed them into distinct artistic expressions. This is how they differ, because upon their return, each of them created an authentic artistic vision that was also in harmony with the requirements and tastes of the social milieu. The works presented at the exhibition European Contexts point to both similarities and differences among the artists.

Painters presented

Sava Šumanović is represented with works made during a ten-year period, between 1921 and 1930. In a series of two basically related themes – nudes and man in nature – one can clearly recognise a typical feature of Šumanovic’s work: multiplication and variation of motifs. One, two, three or four nude figures in a landscape, the relationship between people, as well as humans and nature form the essential theme of exhibited paintings.

Bogdan Šuput is presented with five oil canvases made during 1937 and 1938, and six graphic sheets. They include a self-portrait, still life, the landscape of Vojvodina and two vedettes of Paris. Narrations of the selected works illustrate the painter’s thoughts about the self, the spaces within which he moves, the objects that define spaces, while the technique of linocut highlights drama of expression and the engaged attitude of the artist with respect to social issues.

Milan Konjović’s opus is presented with works that illustrate a diversity of themes. Created between 1923 and 1958, they at the same time point to numerous changes through which his painting traversed. The curator of the exhibition, Tijana Palkovljević, draws attention in the exhibition catalogue to Konjović’s sojourn in Munich, Dresden and Berlin in 1921 and 1922, where he encountered the ideas of German expressionism. Self-portrait with a cigarette, made before he left for Paris, demonstrates his readiness and his aptitude to embrace and apply art tendencies with which he had become familiar. Other works at the exhibition, made during and after his stay in Paris, demonstrate diverse thematic interests and changes in the domain of formal language; all his works point to a preference for expressionist procedure.

Petar Dobrović is presented with works created between 1918 and 1935 and illustrate oscillations and fluctuations in the artist’s style, his search for the monumental, his option for the rhetoric of "realisms" and his abandonment of the primary role of the narrative and an inclination for the concept of "pure painting". The themes of works on display emphasise the extent of the painter’s preoccupations: historical composition, still lifes, portraits, landscapes. Portraits function here as unique mental maps: small paintings that depict friends and acquaintances and that bear witness to people who shaped the artist’s private life, while monumental portraits and characters indicate his social position i.e. the public projection of his social engagement.

Dobrović, Šumanović and Šuput died tragically in 1942, in the whirlwind of World War Two. Their creative work ended suddenly: Dobrović was 52 years old, Šumanović 44, and Šuput 28.

Milan Konjović was the only one who continued to paint in new social and political circumstances in the second half of the century. What course the after-war painting of other three painters would have taken one can only imagine.

The life paths of Dobrović, Konjović, Šumanović and Šuput occasionally met. More often, however, their works would meet – at exhibitions from Belgrade via Zagreb and Paris to representative shows of Yugoslav art in London and Amsterdam.

And, finally now – at the group exhibition in Novi Sad.