Vaclav Lev Anderle (1859-1944) was the son of a forestry clerk from the Czech Republic. After his father’s premature death and high school graduation he was unable to study painting. He graduated in forestry at the High School of Soil Culture in Vienna, where he also graduated from the Art Academy. He worked as a forester his entire life, first in the Czech Republic, then in Croatia in the late 1900s – the first three years in Gorski Kotar. He illustrated Czech hunting magazines for a number of years. In Croatia, he worked with the publisher L. Hartman (later Kugli and Deutsch), the publishers of Vienac, Dom i svijet and others.
His drawings of nature, landscapes and people of Gorski Kotar, Lika and the Croatian Littoral in the travelogues by Dragutin Hirc are authentic and impressive records of the period in which they were created. Hirc acknowledges him in his book Gorski Kotar (1898) with the following lines: Brotherly thanks to my friend V. A n d e r l e, who illustrated this book with such lovely, largely original drawings. Living for three years in Gorski Kotar, he peeked into its every nook, got to know its every tree and rock, the life of the people and its nature. This is why Gorski Kotar is illustrated as it can only be by an artist who knows it intimately.
Anderle’s work also decorates one of the most published Croatian pre-Illyrian Movement book, Razgovor ugodni naroda slovinskog by Andrija Kačić Miošić (editions after 1898).
The exhibition will be opened on April 22nd of 2010 at the Art Pavilion Juraj Šporer.
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