Masterpieces from the Collection of the National Museum of Modern Art
The Croatian Museum of Tourism is starting a series of exhibitions organized in collaboration with Croatian museum institutions. The first in the series is the exhibition Blue Gazes, which presents masterpieces from the collection of the National Museum of Modern Art in Zagreb. The exhibition provides an overview of the perception of the open sea and coastline in Croatian painting from the end of the 19th century to abstraction. The sea and the coastal belt are depicted as a space of aesthetic inspiration, spiritual introspection, and historical change, from plein-air fidelity to nature to abstract expressions of inner states. The paintings highlight the color blue, explore the symbolism, its meaning, and the visual impact of blue. The color blue is considered elusive and untouchable because it reveals itself on the edges of our world, those most distant and deepest spaces where the sea meets the sky. In times when natural beauties are increasingly threatened by mass tourism and environmental instability, Blue Views remind us that artistic depictions of the sea are more than mere representation -they are mirrors of our responsibility towards the space in which we live.
The beginnings of the depiction of the sea in Croatian painting are marked by artists such as Vlaho Bukovac and Menci Clement Crnčić, who approach the landscape through academic realism and plein air. Not far from Opatija, in Novi Vinodolski, Menci Clement Crnčić painted the first seascapes of Croatian modernism. With the transition to the 20th century, the landscape became a key expression of national identity, and artists such as Emanuel Vidović, Ljubo Babić, and Ignjat Job introduce the emotional and expressive dimension of the space. Artists of the post-war period such as Edo Murtić, Ivo Dulčić, and Frano Baće interpret the landscape through color, symbolism, and lyrical abstraction. In the second half of the 20th century, the landscape increasingly becomes the mental space and bearer of personal memory, which is manifested in the works of Slavko Šohaj, Zlatan Vrkljan, Marta Ehrlich, and Dalibor Parać.
The exhibition features masterpieces from the collection of the National Museum of Modern Art that were painted by the most important Croatian artists of the 20th and 21st centuries: Ljubo Babić, Frano Baće, Vlaho Bukovac, Menci Clement Crnčić, Ivo Dulčić, Marta Ehrlich, Ignjat Job, Mila Kumbatović, Gustav Likan (Haueise), Bane Milenković, Jerolim Miše, Omer Mujadžić, Edo Murtić, Dalibor Parać, Vilim Svečnjak, Slavko Šohaj, Đuro Tiljak, Emanuel Vidović, Zlatan Vrkljan, and Mladen Veža.
Organization: Croatian Museum of Tourism, Opatija, National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Exhibition Curators: Tea Hatadi and Lorena Šimić
Design of Exhibition Display: Lada Sega and Lorena Šimić
Media Promotion: Ivan Modrić and Lana Šetka
Graphic Design and Preparation of Poster, Invitation, and Folded Leaflet: Wanda Design
English Translation: Branka Svetlin
Proofreading: Dijana Stanić-Rešicki
The exhibition was funded by the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia and the City of Opatija.
Cover page:
Menci Clement Crnčić
Calm Sea, 1906
Oil on canvas
94.6 x 140.7 cm
© National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb / Photo by Goran Vranić, inv. br. / inv. no. MG-441
