Art of Yugoslavia

Vlaho Bukovac organized a painters society in Zagreb with many exhibitions, while in Belgrade Kirilo Kutlik set up the first school of art in 1895.

Modern currents of expressionism, cubism and surrealism emerged with new young artists like Petar Dobrović, Jovan Bijelić, Milo Milunović, Sava Šumanović, Stane Kregar and Gojmir Anton Kos.

While lasting for only a couple of years notable socialist realist artwork and sculptures include Boža Ilić’s “Exploratory drilling in New Belgrade”, Antun Augustinčić's Batina memorial (1945-1957) and the monument to the fallen soldiers at Iriški Venac by Sreten Stojanović in 1951.

[1] At the 1952 Ljubljana Congress of the Association of Writers of Yugoslavia Miroslav Krleža criticized Soviet realism in painting which he denounced as a revival of bourgeois academic forms.

Tolerance or the outright official support for the abstract art, local Bauhaus traditions and Russian constructivism was used for political representation by the regime nurturing an image of Yugoslavia as a modern and independent country.

Famous artists of this period include Miodrag B. Protić, Branko Miljuš, Miljenko Stančić, Vladimir Veličković, Vjenceslav Richter, Ivan Picelj, Miroslav Šutej, Janez Bernik, Jože Ciuha and Adriana Maraž.