Certainly the most powerful European artist in the first half of the 20th century was sculptor
Ivan Mestrovic, whose talent took him from the position of a
shepherd
boy to the very top position place in the art world.
Ivan
Mestrovic was born in 1883. in the town of Vrpolje in Slavonia, but he
spend
his childhood in Otavice, a small village in Dalmatian hinterland. As a
child
Mestrovic tended sheep while listening of orally transmitted epics,
folk songs
and historical ballads and this inspired him to crave heroic and heroic
deeds
in wood and stone. His father had been Hajduk (outlaws who defended
people from
the Turks), also he was the only literate man in the village. His
family where
very religious people, his mother recited Gospel parables from the
memory
almost every night, and his father had a Bible (only book in the house
which
helped Ivan to learned how to read and write).
At
age of 16 Ivan M. went to Split to live and work in a workshop of a
stone
cutter-Pavle Bilinic. He took him as an apprentice but his artistic
skills
improved in only one year with lots of help of Bilinic wife (high
school
teacher), and by watching the monumental buildings in the city of
Split. With
help of mine owner from Vienna he went to Academy of Fine Arts. He had
to
quickly learn from scratch and adjust to the new environment, but he
persevered
and successfully finished his studies.
During
his studies he met Ruza Klein, child of a Jewish merchant, who never
excepted
her relationship with Ivan M., because he was a poor village boy, and
he purse
her from the house. In 1904. they got married, but they never had
children.
For
the first time in 1905 he exhibited his works with the group of
Viennese
Secession artists, where he exhibited his first work of art Well
of life. His work quickly became
popular, so he earned enough money to travel to
more international exhibitions. Mestrovic stayed in Paris on several
occasions, and in 1908. he rented the artist studio in Montparnasse, in
only
two years he exectude over fifty sculptures, and became international
success. In
1911 he moved to Belgrade,
and soon after to Rome
where he received the
grand prix for the Serbian
Pavilion on the 1911
Rome International
Exhibition. The
heroes that fought the Turks in the famous Kosovo battle
in 1389 came to
life again in bronze and stone. He presented them to the European
public as
symbols of the patriotic aspiration and striving of the southern Slavs
towards
freedom and independence this time from
the Austro- Hungarian oppressors.
He remained in Rome to spend
four
years studying ancient
Greek
sculpture.
Before World War I he
directed himself towards religious motifs.
No sooner then the end of the
war where
more serene tones observed on a theme of a women playing musical
instruments.
After War he went back to
Zagreb, where he got job as professor and later the director of the Art Institute in
Zagreb, and proceeded to
build numerous internationally renowned works as well as many donated
chapels
and churches and grants to art students. During that time he met his
second
wife Olga, with who he has four children (Marta, Tvrtko, Marija and
Mate).
In the period beetwen two World Wars when he was
amased by Michaelangelo, he made large number of stone relifes, naked
figures
and potraits. The most famous is the monument of Grgur Ninski in Split.
He
continued to travel to post his exhibits around the world, especcialy
in
America, where he made monument to the Indians at Grand Park in Chicago
in
1928.At this time Ivan M. build the family mausoleum in Otavice
conceived as
the Church of the Redeemer. He build the mansion in Split for him and
his
family, mostly as the family residence and his atelier, later on became
gallery. On January 31st 1952, the Government of the People’s
Republic
of Croatia signed a bequest agreement with Meštrović by which the
artist
donated to “the people and county of Croatia” residential houses in
Zagreb and
Split, the family mausoleum in Otavice and works according to enclosed
lists.
This bequest gave the Meštrović Gallery
in Split ownership of 70 sculptures, including a considerable
number of
Meštrović’s best known works. The first exhibition at the Gallery in
1957
contained some 120 works, some that were owned by the Gallery and some
owned by
Meštrović. The exhibition in 1983 numbered some 200 exhibits, 137 of
them owned
by the Gallery, namely almost double the number from the bequest. That
is to
say that the sculptor’s bequest laid out the basic framework for the
Gallery,
which received additions to its holdings through the continuing care on
the
part of the artist and his family, as well as those in charge of the
Gallery.
Some of the plaster sculptures were, either in arrangement with the
author, or
later with his widow and daughter, executed in stone or bronze in order
to
preserve them from decay.
Today,
the holdings contain 192 sculptures, 583
drawings, 4 paintings, 291 architectonic plans (almost entirely made by
Ivan
Mestrovic and dating between 1898 and 1961), and 2 furniture sets, one
of which
is made according to Mestrovic's sketches and is a part of the New
Permanent
Display of the former dining room. The Ivan Mestrovic Gallery houses
not only
works owned by it, but also 168 works of art owned by Ivan Mestrovic's
heirs.
Apart form the museum holdings, the Gallery collects documentation
relating to
Ivan Mestrovic's life and work. Especially interesting items are the
photographs of the artist's first works (taken at the beginning of the
century
in Vienna and in 1908 and 1909 in Paris) and the archive material. There is the family archive found in
the house in
1952, containing letters of the family members and friends, as well
astheir
personal documents, and the archive of the builder M. Marasovic
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Meštrović
Gallery in Split
Cyclops, bronze, 1933
Woman
by the sea, bronze, 1926
Distant
chords, bronze, 1919
Persephone, bronze,1946
My
Mother, bronze,1909
The
Katunaric family, bronze, 1906
Ruza
Mestrovic, bronze, 1915
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During the war he was briefly imprisoned by the Ustaše
during
the With help from the Vatican
he was released for Venice and Rome,
later to Switzerland. Unfortunately not all of his family managed to
escape --
his first wife Ruža died in 1942
and many from her Jewish
family were killed
in the Holocaust.
Later, his brother Petar was imprisoned by the emerging Communists,
which further depressed the artist. After the World War II Marshall Tito
invited Meštrović
back but he refused to live in a communist country. In 1946 the Syracuse University
offered him professorship
and he moved to the United States.President
Dwight D.
Eisenhower
personally presided
over a ceremony granting Meštrović the American citizenship
in 1954.
He went on to be a professor at the University of Notre
Dame in 1955.
Before he died, Meštrović returned to Yugoslavia
one last time in order to visit the imprisoned Cardinal Alojzije
Stepinac and Tito
himself. At the request of various people from his homeland he sent 59
statues
from the United States to Yugoslavia, and in 1952 even
signed off his
Croatian estates to the people, including over 400 sculptures and
numerous
drawings.
Ultimately, it would be the death of his children that would
cause his
own. His daughter Marta who moved with him to the US died at the age of
24 in 1949;
his
son Tvrtko who
remained in Zagreb died in 1961.
He created four clay sculptures to commemorate his
children's death, and a few months later, Ivan Meštrović died at the
age of 79
in South Bend,
Indiana.
According to his own
wishes, he was transferred to be buried a mausoleum
in Otavice
Sources:
- Keckemet,
Dusko, Ivan Mestrovic – Split, Mestrovic Gallery Split and
Spektar Zagreb, Yugoslavia 1969
- MUZEOLOGIJA 36/1999
The works of Ivan Mestrovic in collections,
museums and galleries, 1999.
- LINKS:
http://www.mdc.hr/mestrovic/okrugli-stol.htm#1
http://www.moljac.hr
http://www.mdc.hr/mestrovic/kastelet/index-hr.htm
http://archives.syr.edu/arch/faculty/mestbio.htm
www.wikimediafoundation.org
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