CROATIAN VISUAL ARTS 2013 - J. SEISSEL

JOSIP SEISSEL (Krapina, 1904 - Zagreb, 1987)

At an early age Seissel showed an interest in art, especially in avant-garde events in fine arts and theatre. He attended gymnasium in Zagreb where with couple of his friends Traveleri in 1922 gave a performance with Dadaist elements using texts by avant-garde artists. Due to scandal aroused by the performance he was forced to take his baccalaureate exam in Belgrade. Between 1922 and 1925, under the pseudonym Jo Klek, he collaborated with Ljubomir Micić and the artistic cycle around the periodical Zenit (Zenith) making constructivist collages, drawings, watercolours and posters, illustrating books and participating in a series of international avant-garde exhibitions. In 1929 he took his degree in architecture at the Technical Faculty in Zagreb, with the professor Hugo Ehrlich, whereupon he participated in elaboration of a number of architectural and urban planning projects. He is the author of the Yugoslav Pavilion at the International Exposition in Paris in 1937 for which he was awarded Grand Prix for architecture. In the middle of 1930ies he started creating surrealist works among which the cycle 3C and trifles stands out - a series of watercolours, Indian ink and tempera works researching the possibilities of connecting words and images. By doing so, he creates one of the key surrealist chapters in Croatian art. During the Second World War he makes automatic drawings and surrealist works at the theme of fear and death. From 1947 he was professor at the Faculty of Architecture in Zagreb, and from 1962 also a regular member of the Yugoslav Academy of Arts and Sciences (JAZU). His rich artistic and architectural heritage is kept in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb.
In 1922 a collage PAFAMA was created - first abstract picture in Croatia. It is just one of the series of abstract and figurative works made during several years and testifying about the Seissel’s vivid interest in basic principles of constructivist shaping. PAFAMA is a square picture of small dimensions with dominating multicolour geometric elements on black background. In this work the author evidently and with understanding follows the avant-garde culture of the period, especially the Russian Constructivism and Suprematism. The title of this collage work is a combined abbreviation of German words for paper, colour and painting (PApier-FArben-MAlerei). A short constructivist period in the work of Josip Seissel, with the famous PAFAMA as the key work, became a model and a starting point for many Croatian artists and therefore is its importance for the history of avant-garde tendencies in Croatian art exceptional.

Petar Prelog