Illustrations by Cvijeta Job and Zdenko Balabanić

The exhibition Illustrations by Cvijeta Job and Zdenko Balabanić, organized by the Croatian Museum of Tourism, was opened at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 10th of 2011 at the Juraj Šporer Art Pavilion in Opatija.

The immediate associations to illustrations by Cvijeta Job are illustrations of stories by Ivana Brlić Mažuranić. They naturally remind us of our own childhood, the times we grew up with Tales of Old, illustrated in a characteristic, imaginative and unique manner. Illustrations by Cvijeta Job are a completely encapsulated world with its own features: space, characters, objects and colors.

Born in Beograd in 1924, Cvijeta Job spent most of her childhood in Supetar on Brač and in Split. She began showing her work during World War II and after the war she enrolled in the Art Academy in Zagreb where she graduated in 1951. She married Zdenko Balabanić in 1952 and they first moved to Rijeka, then Opatija in 1953. They returned to Zagreb in 1976. The most relevant portion of her opus of illustrations, primarily for fairytales, was created in Opatija.

Zdenko Balabanić was born in Novalja on the island of Pag in 1927. In 1946, he enrolled in the Art Academy in Zagreb and he graduated from the Art Academy in Beograd   in 1951. After returning to Zagreb and marrying Cvijeta Job in 1952, he worked as an art teacher in Rijeka and Opatija. From 1964 to 1974, when he retired, he was employed at the Teaching Academy in Rijeka. Soon after moving to Zagreb in 1976, he fell ill and passed away on January 5th of 1978.

Life in Opatija was hard for the couple. They lived in a basement flat in villa Serena for 12 years. Being physically impaired and living in such poverty has a great impact on the sensitive painter. From the melancholic atmosphere and dark color pallet to the heavy expressiveness of his motifs, his paintings are a mirror for his spirit. Consequently, his relatively limited opus of illustrations is inevitably linked to poetry, primarily Sergei Yesenin and Miroslav Krleža. Balabanić also illustrated Lorca, Matoš, Block and Rilke.

The exhibition will remain open until April 10th of 2011.