Ferdinand Kulmer (29 January 1925 – 11 November 1998) was a Croatian abstract painter and teacher. He studied at the

Budapest Academy of Fine Arts The Hungarian University of Fine Arts ( Hungarian: ''Magyar Képzőművészeti Egyetem'', MKE) is the central Hungarian art school in Budapest, Andrássy Avenue. It was founded in 1871 as the Hungarian Royal Drawing School ''(Magyar Királyi Min ...

, the Zagreb Academy of Fine Arts, and took special classes with

Đuro Tiljak 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" (''Kul ...

. Kulmer worked in the studio of

Krsto Hegedušić Krsto Hegedušić (26 November 1901 – 7 April 1975) was a Croatian painter, illustrator and theater designer. His most famous paintings depict the harsh life of the Croatian peasantry in the manner of naive art. He was one of the founders of ...

, and for many years was a professor at the Zagreb Academy of Fine Arts. Kulmer's paintings tend towards abstract or semi-abstract scenes, with his early compositions based on still life or interiors featuring calligraphic brushwork. He developed a more heavily textured style, turning later to a looser, more gestural style with mythical themes that includes dancing calligraphic shapes. He designed costumes for two films by Vatroslav Mimica and Veljko Bulajic. Member of the

Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts The Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts ( la, Academia Scientiarum et Artium Croatica, hr, Hrvatska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti, abbrev. HAZU) is the national academy of Croatia. HAZU was founded under patronage of the Croatian bishop Jo ...

. In 1990, Kulmer received the

Vladimir Nazor Award The Vladimir Nazor Award ( hr, Nagrada Vladimir Nazor) is a Croatian prize for arts and culture established in 1959 and awarded every year by the Ministry of Culture. Named after the writer Vladimir Nazor (1876–1949), the prize is awarded to Cr ...

for lifetime achievement in the visual arts.

Biography

Ferdinand Kulmer was born 29 January 1925 in

Cap Martin Cape Martin (french: Cap Martin) is a headland situated in the commune of Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, Alpes-Maritimes ''departments of France, département'', in southern France. It is situated on the Mediterranean Sea coast between Monaco and Menton. ...

in the south of France, where his parents were spending the winter. The Kulmer family was aristocratic, old Croatian nobility that had been prominent in the political circles of Zagreb during the rule of

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

, and included the well-known 19th century lawyer and politician Baron

Franjo Kulmer Franjo is a Croatian masculine given name. In Croatia, the name Franjo was among the top ten most common masculine given names in the decades up to 1949. Notable people with the name include: *Franjo Arapović (born 1965), former Croatian basketb ...

. Ferdinand's father was Count Alexander Kulmer, master of Cernik (near

Nova Gradiška Nova Gradiška is a town located in the Brod-Posavina County of Croatia, population 14,229 (2011). It is located in the historic region of Slavonia, near the border to Bosnia and Herzegovina. The first word in the name means ''New'', and there' ...

), and his mother was the Austrian Countess d'Oberstat Edeltrud Bopp. Young Ferdinand spent a comfortable childhood on a number of family estates and residences, schooled by private tutor. From 1936 he attended the Jesuit boarding school of Kalksburg in Vienna. When Kulmer was 13, he travelled extensively with his father around the Mediterranean, and the following year to the United States (New York, Chicago, Detroit, Washington). In 1942, Kulmer enrolled in the

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied under the Hungarian painter Rezso Zsombolya-Burghardt. It was an intense time, with the bombing of Pest by the Allied forces, and the family home reduced to ruins. By January 1945, Russian troops were entering Budapest, and amongst the general chaos, hunger and deprivation, Kulmer moved to Zagreb. The family fortune, along with most of their possessions was lost, and the privileged world of their relatives and friends had gone, taken over by the new socialist order. Kulmer retreated to his apartment in the Upper Town of Zagreb, part of the family palace on Catherine square. There he taught languages and attended the Academy of Fine Arts from 1945 to 1948, studying with Omer Mujadžić 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 was ...

. Kulmer also took special classes at the painting school of

during 1948–50. From 1950 to 1957, Kulmer worked in the studio of

. After 10 years of being unable to travel, in 1955 he was granted a passport, and a two-month scholarship to Paris. Given his upbringing and knowledge of languages and different cultures, he made good use of his opportunity, forming new friends and useful contacts, opening doors and gaining an insight into the changes of the art world. On his return to Zagreb, Kulmer conveyed these new ideas to the local artist community. In 1961, Kulmer was appointed assistant to Hegedušić at the Academy of Fine Arts, becoming a full professor in 1969. In 1961, Kulmer held his first solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb. Kulmer was a member of the artist group March (''Mart''), and joined Gallery Forum in 1969. He participated in the Paris exhibition ''Galerie d'art international'' in 1979. He designed costumes for two films by Vatroslav Mimica and Veljko Bulajic in 1974–75 and 1977. Ferdinand Kulmer died in Zagreb on 11 November 1998.

Legacy

Kulmer's earliest work has unfortunately not survived, so an analysis of his early development is not possible. During the 1950s, Kulmer was painting delicate, semi-abstract compositions based on still lifes or interiors, that featured stylised calligraphic elements. Following his visit to Paris in 1955, his paintings started to show the influence of

Fauvism Fauvism /ˈfoʊvɪzm̩/ is the style of ''les Fauves'' (French language, French for "the wild beasts"), a group of early 20th-century modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the Representation (arts), repr ...

, particularly

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

and

Raoul Dufy Raoul Dufy (; 3 June 1877 – 23 March 1953) was a French Fauvism, Fauvist painter. He developed a colorful, decorative style that became fashionable for designs of ceramic art, ceramics and textile as well as decorative schemes for public bu ...

. By the end of the 1950s and into the early 1960s Kulmer developed a heavily textured style, producing completely abstract works with no recognizable forms. From this period comes the "Brown painting" that was purchased by the Tate Gallery in London. Kulmer's work has been described as "eclectic", and he was certainly one of the artists that continued to evolve in new directions as time went on. The second half of the 1960s saw calligraphy back in his work, turning into the colourful zigzags that were such a strong feature of his creations in the 1970s. Afterwards he turned to a looser, more gestural style, with works that included dancing calligraphic shapes in black and white or bright colours formed by controlled pouring. By the 1980s, Kulmer had introduced mythological and heraldic motifs to his images, extremely simplified and stylized. The texture of his work showed the influence of

Art Informel Informalism or Art Informel is a pictorial movement from the 1943–1950s, that includes all the abstract and gestural tendencies that developed in France and the rest of Europe during the World War II, similar to American abstract expressioni ...

, while the subject matter relates to the ideas of

neo-expressionism Neo-expressionism is a style of late modernist or early- postmodern painting and sculpture that emerged in the late 1970s. Neo-expressionists were sometimes called ''Transavantgarde'', ''Junge Wilde'' or ''Neue Wilden'' ('The new wild ones'; 'Ne ...

. In Kulmer's "Pegasus's Garden" for example, he was using

palaeolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (), also called the Old Stone Age (from Greek: παλαιός ''palaios'', "old" and λίθος ''lithos'', "stone"), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone too ...

symbols. During the 1970s, Kulmer created the sets and costumes for two films. These historical dramas provided him with the opportunity to explore his own background and experiences when growing up. Prior to that time, his work had contained no references to history or his past, yet from the 1980s there is a strong sense of rich pageantry, heraldic emblems and escapism. His work is marked by strong, very real surface texture, almost tactile, combined with rich, complex tonal colour. In 2007, Croatian Post, Inc. issued a stamp of Ferdinand Kulmer's "Pegasus' Garden" as part of their Croatian Modern Painting series.

Works

* Ružičasta kuća (Pink House), 1954 * Glava (Head), 1954 * Žena u interieuru (Woman inside), 1955 * Interieur (Interior), 1956 * Admiral, 1957 * Laptir (Butterfly), 1957 * Visoka slika (Tall Painting), 1960 * Smeđa slika (Brown Painting), 1960 * Siva slika I (Grey Painting I), 1960 * Kompozicija (Composition), 1960 * Razgranatost II, 1965 * Narančasto-plavo-crna kaligrafia (Orange-Blue-Black Calligraphy), 1967 * Susreti I, 1966 * Šetnja, 1966 * Svibanj I, 1969 * Barbarosa, 1974 * Jour Fixe, 1979 * Veliki crni dogovor (Large Black Arrangement), 1983 * Ratni plijen - Golijatova kacija (Spoils of War - Goliath's Helmet), 1983 * Ganimedov lijet, 1984 * Grifonova nježnost, 1986 * Bijeg, 1987 * Tri figure i pas (Three figures and a dog), 1989 * Cvjetno lice, 1989 * Patetični triptihon II (Orfej), 1988 * Cvijet za Kazimira, 1990 Film set and costume design * Peasant Revolt 1573 Vatroslav Mimica, 1975 * The man who should be killed (the false Emperor Scepan Mali) Veljko Bulajic, 1979

Exhibitions

During his lifetime, Ferdinand Kulmer exhibited extensively in Europe (Paris, London, Vienna, The Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Hungary), and in 1969 he became member of gallery "Forum" in Zagreb.

Solo exhibitions

Recent exhibitions of his work include: * 2006 Ferdinand Kulmer, Adris Gallery, Rovinj * 1990 Retrospektiva, Klovićev Courtyard, Zagreb * 1984 Ferdinand Kulmer Pictures 1983, Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb * 1976 Ferdinand Kulmer Pictures 1953-1976 - Modern Gallery, Zagreb * 1971 Ferdinand Kulmer,

Gallery of Fine Arts, Split The Museum of Fine Arts ( hr , Galerija umjetnina), is an art museum in Split, Croatia containing works from the 14th century up to the present day providing an overview of the artistic developments in the local art scene. The museum was founded ...

* 1961 Ferdinand Kulmer exhibition

Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb The Museum of Contemporary Art ( hr, Muzej suvremene umjetnosti, often abbreviated to MSU) is a contemporary art museum located on Dubrovnik Avenue in Zagreb, Croatia. It is the biggest and most modern museum in the country. History The museum ...

Group exhibitions

* 2008 From the holdings of the museum, Museum of Modern Art, Dubrovnik * 2006 Croatian Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art, Skopje, Macedonia * 2004 Image, Gesture and Matter - MMSU - Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Rijeka * 1987 19° Bienal de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

Public collections

Ferdinand Kulmer's work can be found in the following public collections:

Croatia

* Modern Gallery, Zagreb * Museum of Modern Art, Dubrovnik *

* Rovinj Heritage Museum,

Rovinj Rovinj (; it, Rovigno; Istriot: or ; grc, Ρυγίνιον, Rygínion; la, Ruginium) is a city in Croatia situated on the north Adriatic Sea with a population of 14,294 (2011). Located on the western coast of the Istrian peninsula, it is a po ...

* Galerija Galzenica,

Velika Gorica Velika Gorica (; meaning "Great Vineyard/Forest") is the largest and most populous city in Zagreb County, Croatia. According to the 2011 census the city itself has a population of 31,341, while the municipality has a population of 63,517 inhabita ...

Macedonia

* Museum of Contemporary Art,

Skopje Skopje ( , , ; mk, Скопје ; sq, Shkup) is the capital and largest city of North Macedonia. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre. The territory of Skopje has been inhabited since at least 4000 BC; r ...

Serbia

* Museum of Contemporary Art,

Belgrade Belgrade ( , ;, ; Names of European cities in different languages: B, names in other languages) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city in Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers a ...

United Kingdom

* Tate Collection, London

References

Sources

Bibliography

* "Ferdinand Kulmer l'œuvre 1975-1983" Paris Art Center,1983., Paris {{DEFAULTSORT:Kulmer, Ferdinand Abstract artists Vladimir Nazor Award winners Members of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts Hungarian University of Fine Arts alumni 1925 births 1998 deaths 20th-century Croatian painters Croatian male painters 20th-century Croatian male artists