– ANKA KRIZMANIĆ, LOVERS, 1926, (PASTEL ON PAPER, 1005 X 1125 MM), KOVAČIĆ COLLECTION, PHOTOGRAPH: KREŠIMIR TADIĆ

ANKA KRIZMANIĆ (Omilje near Zelina 1896 – Zagreb 1987) Already as a little girl Anka Krizmanić showed great interest and exceptional talent for drawing and panting. Her earliest preserved works date from 1908; two years later she will interrupt her gymnasium schooling and - as the youngest attendant – inscribe a famous painting school of Tomislav Krizman on Jelačić Square in Zagreb. Thanks to her talent and devotion, the young pupil has immediately made an excellent impression, which her teacher will also award. Actually he will include two of her drawings in Medulić exhibition opened 1910 in Art Pavilion in Zagreb. One 14-year old will thus find herself in elite fellowship of the most prominent Croatian painters and sculptors of the time as Krizman, Babić, Rački, Bukovac, Vidović, Meštrović, Rosandić and others. After three year’s stay at Krizman’s school, Anka Krizmanić decides to continue her schooling in Germany. Since she could not attend art academies because she did not have the Matura exam, following the advice by Krizman she inscribes Artistic and Crafts School in Dresden. Here she practices a variety of graphic techniques, the result of which is a silver medal for the best work in graphics, the only acknowledgement she would ever receive. In Dresden she is often in the company of architect Ibler and during her study she will also meet Otto Dix. After returning to Zagreb Anka Krizmanić immediately and actively joins the town’s artistic life. At Spring Salon she had exhibited for the first time already in 1916, at the time of her stay in Dresden and thereafter became a regular member of the Spring Salon. Her activities were varied; apart from drawings and graphics she made a number of pastels of huge formats and also tapestries, drafts for puppet’s theatre, fashion drawings and even cartoons. Anka Krizmanić had her first independent exhibition in 1923 in Crikvenica and then followed exhibitions in Gospić, Split, Dubrovnik, Opatija, Čakovec and logically Zagreb where she will independently exhibit nine times in the period between 1925 and 1986. She will also participate at group exhibitions in Paris and Geneva. Owing to scholarship from French government the stay in Paris in 1929/30 meant for Anka Krizmanić gaining new colouristic experiences. She makes a number of drawings and pastels with the motives of the European art metropolis whereof only a few remain preserved. After Paris, her strongly present linearity will gradually be replaced by always more present coloristic and paintings techniques. On two occasions – from 1931 until 1939 and from 1946 until 1951 she was earning her living as drawing artist at the Faculty of Medicine in Zagreb. With her great retrospective exhibition a ninety year old Anka Krizmanić will triumphantly return to the place where it all began - to the Artistic Pavilion in Zagreb. Numerous public had once again the opportunity, for the last time during artist’s life, to see pictures of entirely authentic expression and above all of a variety of subjects that doubtlessly form an unavoidable part within Croatian art between the two world wars. The painting Lovers was created in 1926 in pastel on paper. It depicts a pair in love, tenderly braced, in predominantly blue and red nuances. The background is in dominantly dark tones for sky and slightly lighter tones for the landscape; the figures of men and women in the foreground take more than half of the picture surface. Their bodies build a unique rounded unity and similar roundness is lucidly being repeated in the depiction of the far away mountains.