Đuro Tiljak (1895–1965) was a Croatian artist, writer and teacher. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, and studied for some time in Moscow with Wassily Kandinsky. During the 1930s, he was editor of the journal "Culture" (''Kultura'') and "Writer" (''Književnik'') magazine. For many years he was a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. He was a member of the

Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts The Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts (; , HAZU) is the national academy of Croatia. HAZU was founded under the patronage of the Croatian bishop Josip Juraj Strossmayer under the name Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts (, JAZU) since its ...

Biography

Đuro Tiljak was born 21 March 1895 in Zagreb. He began his art studies in Zagreb at the College of Arts and Crafts, later to become the Academy of Fine Arts. His teachers there included

Oton Iveković Oton Iveković (; 17 April 1869 – 4 July 1939) was a Croats, Croatian painter. A graduate of Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Iveković later taught at the University of Zagreb Academy of Fine Arts, Academy of Fine ...

and

Ljubo Babić Ljubomir Tito Stjepan Babić (14 June 1890 – 14 May 1974) was a Croatian artist, museum curator and literary critic. As an artist, he worked in a variety of media including oils, tempera, watercolour, drawing, etching, and lithography. He wa ...

. In 1919, he spent some months in Moscow, studying with

Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky ( – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter and art theorist. Kandinsky is generally credited as one of the pioneers of abstract art, abstraction in western art. Born in Moscow, he spent his childhood in ...

, returning to Zagreb to complete his degree in 1923. In order to pay back his scholarship, he took up teaching posts in schools. During the 1930s, Tiljak travelled down the Dalmatian coast in search of inspiration, and visited the island of Vis. In December 1942 Tiljak joined the partisans along with his friend Marijan Detoni. During the war period he found refuge in the painters' colony in Cozzan, returning to Zagreb in 1945 to take up the post of professor at the Academy of Fine Art in Zagreb where he continued to teach until his retirement. Đuro Tiljak died in Zagreb on 11 December 1965.

Legacy

Initially influenced by

impressionist Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

and

postimpressionist Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction ag ...

painters such as Cézanne,

Van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2,100 artwork ...

and

Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual arts, visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, ...

, Tiljak's style later moved towards

magical realism Magical realism, magic realism, or marvelous realism is a style or genre of fiction and art that presents a realistic view of the world while incorporating magical elements, often blurring the lines between speculation and reality. ''Magical rea ...

. His landscapes were poetic, tending towards abstraction. In the early 1930s, Tiljak was active in the controversy over artistic expression. Their views were opposed to those of the establishment, and the more intellectual artists. He was particularly critical of the painter Ljubo Babic and the Group of Three, contributing to the polarisation of the Croatian art scene of the time. In the 1950s, he returned to a more intimate style, close to abstract. Tiljak's legacy is not simply his own work, but in teaching a new generation of Croatian artists. His early training with Kandinsky gave him an appreciation for the abstract, which he imparted to his students. In 1966, a memorial to the work of Đuro Tiljak was opened in

Komiža Komiža () is a Croatian coastal town lying on the western coast of the Vis (island), island of Vis in the central part of the Adriatic Sea. Komiža is located at the foot of the Hum hill (587 m). Town has a Mediterranean climate. The economy i ...

, on the island of Vis In 2000, Croatian Post, Inc. issued a stamp of Đuro Tiljak's "Brusnik", 1930 as part of their Croatian Visual Arts series.

Works

* Park, 1925 * Brusnik, 1930 * Cipeliši (Shoes), 1931 * Djevojčica (Little Girl), 1944 * Kuča u prirodi (House in the Country)

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

Recent exhibitions of his work include: * 1972 Đuro Tiljak retrospective – Art Pavilion, Zagreb

Group exhibitions

* 1979 Paintings from the War for National Freedom, Museum of Modern Art, Dubrovnik

Public collections

Đuro Tiljak's work can be found in the following public collections Croatia *

Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb The Museum of Contemporary Art (, often abbreviated to MSU) is a contemporary art art museum, museum located on Dubrovnik Avenue in Zagreb, Croatia. It is the biggest and most modern museum in the country. Vesna Meštrić is current director of MS ...

* Gallery of Fine Arts, Osijek

References

Bibliography

* Đuro Tiljak – Retrospektivna Izložba. Monograph published by the Art Pavilion, Zagreb, 1972. {{DEFAULTSORT:Tiljak, Duro Croatian painters Members of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts 1895 births 1965 deaths Yugoslav painters