Women's Art Club and Women’s Group Exhibitions in Zagreb from 1928 until 1940

Artl@s Bulletin Volume 8 Issue 1 Women Artists Shows.Salons.Societies (1870s-1970s) Article 11 2019 Women's Art Club and Women’s Group Exhibitions in Zagreb from 1928 until 1940 Darija Alujević Fine Arts Archives of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Zagreb, Dunja Nekić Museum of Arts and Crafts, Zagreb, Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/artlas Part of the Modern Art and Architecture Commons, and the Women's Studies Commons Recommended Citation Alujević, Darija and Dunja Nekić. "Women's Art Club and Women’s Group Exhibitions in Zagreb from 1928 until 1940." Artl@s Bulletin 8, no. 1 (2019): Article 11. This document has been made available through Purdue e-Pubs, a service of the Purdue University Libraries. Please contact for additional information. This is an Open Access journal. This means that it uses a funding model that does not charge readers or their institutions for access. Readers may freely read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles. This journal is covered under the CC BY-NC-ND license. W.A.S. (1870s-1970s) The Women’s Art Club and Women’s Group Exhibitions in Zagreb from 1928 until 1940 Darija Alujević Fine Arts Archives of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Zagreb Dunja Nekić Museum of Arts and Crafts, Zagreb Abstract In 1927 Croatian painters Nasta Rojc and Lina Crnčić Virant, inspired by their British colleagues, founded the Women’s Art Club in Zagreb. From 1928 until 1940 the Club organized group exhibitions of its members. The main idea of the Club was to improve arts and crafts, to organize female exhibitions and to collaborate with other international women associations. The Club took part in the organisation of the exhibition of Bulgarian women artists and the exhibition of the Little Entente of Women held in 1938 in Zagreb. Women’s Art Club was an important factor of the female artists’ emancipation – organizing the first female group exhibitions in Zagreb. Sažetak Godine 1927. slikarice Nasta Rojc i Lina Crnčić Virant, po uzoru na svoje britanske kolegice, osnovale su Klub likovnih umjetnica u Zagrebu. Od 1928. do 1940. godine Klub je organizirao niz skupnih izložaba svojih članica. Osnovna ideja Kluba bila je unaprijediti umjetnost i obrt, organizacija izložaba umjetnica te suradnja s drugim međunarodnim ženskim udrugama. Klub je sudjelovao u organizaciji izložbe bugarskih umjetnica i izložbi Male ženske antante održanih 1938. godine u Zagrebu. Klub likovnih umjetnica bio je važan čimbenik emancipacije umjetnica - organiziranjem prvih ženskih grupnih izložbi u Zagrebu. 166 ARTL@S BULLETIN, Vol. 8, Issue 1 (Spring 2019) Alujević and Nekić – Women’s Group Exhibitions in Zagreb these were later at the core of the construction and development of the future Academy of Fine Arts, which opened in 1907 as the Temporary High School for Arts and Crafts. Introduction* This paper describes the role of the Zagreb Women’s Art Club in the recognition of women artists in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia from 1928 to 1940.1 The founding of the Women’s Art Club, the first exclusively women’s art association, marked a new phase in the emancipation and affirmation of women artists. The Club played an important role in organising national and exclusively women’s group exhibitions in Zagreb from 1928 until 1940 and in organising two international exhibitions in Zagreb in 1938: the Exhibition of Bulgarian Women Artists and the Exhibition of the Little Entente of Women in collaboration with the Association of University Educated Women. Although the reception of female artists varied from critic to critic, the activity of the Women’s Art Club gave not only visibility to women artists, but also access to the art market. Both Zagreb associations, the Women’s Art Club and the Association of University Educated Women, had a wider social and cultural impact, and apart from exhibitions they also organized lectures and other cultural and artistic events. The construction of the Art Pavilion, the first dedicated exhibition venue in Zagreb, proved to be of crucial importance for the development of exhibition activities and, consequently, art markets. The Art Pavilion, with its construction transported from the Millennium Exhibition in Budapest in 1896, was ceremoniously opened in 1898 with the exhibition of the Croatian Salon, a manifestation which exhibited the young generation of Croatian artists, led by the painter Vlaho Bukovac,2 founder of the Society of Croatian Artists in 1897, which separated from the old Art Society. The Art Pavilion was the venue where were the Society of Croatian Artists’ held exhibitions, numerous group and solo exhibitions of local and foreign artists, as well as four of the six Zagreb exhibitions of the Women’s Art Club, starting with the first in 1928. Ten years later, in 1938, a large exhibition of the Little Entente of Women was held at the Art Pavilion as well. Today, with 120 years of tradition, it is still one of the most reputable exhibition venues in Zagreb. The beginning of a more intense development of cultural and artistic life in Zagreb took place in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, at the time when Croatia was still part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The turn of the century was marked with the establishment of numerous cultural institutions, thus creating preconditions and foundations for the establishment of more intensive artistic life and art market (foundation of the Arts Society (1868), the Crafts School (1882) and the Crafts Museum (1880), etc.). It was the time when the first Croatian artists, painters and sculptors, who were educated at the European academies (Vienna, Munich and others), returned to Zagreb. For their needs, art studios were built in 1895, and In 1909, the first private art gallery, Salon Ullrich 3 in Ilica Street 54, opened in Zagreb. Its owner Antun Ullrich expanded his glassware manufacture of framing paintings to selling and exhibiting art works. From 1926, Antun’s son Edo Ullrich continued his father’s work by opening the second Salon in Ilica Street 40, and after closing of Antun’s Salon in 1927, Edo’s Salon Ullrich would lead his Salon until its nationalization in 1947. Edo Ullrich’s Salon in Ilica Street 40 was the place where the first major international women’s exhibition in Zagreb was held, the exhibition of Bulgarian artists * This work has been fully supported by Croatian Science Foundation under the project IP-2016-06-2112 “Manifestations of Modern Sculpture in Croatia: Sculpture on the Crossroad between Socio-political Pragmatism, Economic Possibilities and Aesthetical Contemplation”. (6th January Dictatorship) and was proclaimed as the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. That state fell in 1941 and what followed were Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia (1945-1963) established after the Second World War and Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1963-1992). More in: Hrvoje Matković, Po (...truncated)