CROATIAN VISUAL ARTS 2013 - LJUBO BABIĆ

LJUBO BABIĆ (Jastrebarsko, 1890 - Zagreb, 1974)

Painter, graphic artist, stage designer, art educator, art historian and critic, museologist and writer - Ljubo Babić was one of the central characters of Croatian modern culture. Still as a high school student in Zagreb he began to attend art school of Menci Clement Crnčić and Bela Čikoš Sesija. In 1907 he becomes a student of the temporary High School for Arts and Crafts and in 1910 leaves Zagreb to study in Munich where at the Academy of Fine Arts he at first attends the drawing class of Angelo Jank, and later the painting class of Franz von Stuck. After return to Zagreb he opens a private painting school, and in 1916 becomes the first assistant teacher at the Zagreb High School for Arts and Crafts, today’s Academy of Fine Arts and starts his exceptionally influential educator’s work. In that same year he participates in the founding of the Croatian Spring Salon - the most important art exhibition of the time, marked by his works with the characteristics of art deco style and his personal kind of expressionism. In 1919 he is the author of the first exhibition of the Modern Gallery. In the 1920ies he intensively cooperates with Branko Gavella on a series of anthological theatre performances creating settings with avant-garde features. His works in painting at that time are in tune with the prevailing neorealistic tendency of Croatian painting. In 1929 he founds together with Vladimir Becić and Jerolim Miše the Group of Three and starts to theoretically develop the idea about „our artistic expression” as an important part of national cultural identity. Exactly in the colourist approach based on regionalism and in finding incentives in folk heritage, Babić tries to articulate „our expession” also on practical level. In 1950 he becomes a regular member of the Yugoslav Academy of Arts (JAZU). Retrospective exhibitions of his works were organised in 1960, 1974 and 2010.
Black Flag from 1916 is among the key works of his opus but also of Croatian modern art. The motif of flag was particularly important to him and took often prominent position in his works. This picture depicts the view from his atelier window at Mesnička Street in Zagreb, on the day of the death of the Emperor Franz Joseph. Black flag is the main protagonist of the scene. Positioned in the first plan in front of the cold grey-blue sky it determines the composition and dominates over small groups of sketched passersby. Precisely in this picture the basic elements of the author’s specific expressionist method are present: pronounced scenery, contrasting masses of light and an inclination to summarised presentation. Therefore, the Black Flag by Ljubo Babić is rightfully considered an anthological work of Croatian expressionism.

Petar Prelog