Sava Šumanović ( sr-Cyrl, Сава Шумановић; 22 January 1896 – 30 August 1942) was a Serbian painter. He is considered to be one of the most important Serbian painters of the 20th century. Šumanović's opus includes around 800 paintings as well as 400 drawings and sketches. He was executed during the mass genocide of Serbs in the

Independent State of Croatia The Independent State of Croatia ( sh, Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH; german: Unabhängiger Staat Kroatien; it, Stato indipendente di Croazia) was a World War II-era puppet state of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. It was established in p ...

Ustaše The Ustaše (), also known by anglicised versions Ustasha or Ustashe, was a Croatian fascist and ultranationalist organization active, as one organization, between 1929 and 1945, formally known as the Ustaša – Croatian Revolutionary Move ...

tortured him and threw him half alive into limestone.

Biography

Sava Šumanović was born in

Vinkovci Vinkovci () is a city in Slavonia, in the Vukovar-Syrmia County in eastern Croatia. The city's registered population was 28,247 in the 2021 census, the total population of the city was 31,057, making it the largest town of the county. Surround ...

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 ...

(now in

Croatia , image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg , anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland") , image_map = , map_caption = , capit ...

) in 1896 where his father was working as an engineer. Šumanovićs were rich and influential family which was recorded in

Šid Šid ( sr-cyr, Шид, ) is a town and municipality located in the Srem District of the autonomous province of Vojvodina, Serbia. It has a population of 14,893, while the municipality has 34,188 inhabitants. A border crossing between Serbia and ...

as of the 18th century. When Šumanović was four years old his family moved to Šid (modern-day

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hungar ...

). He graduated Zemun Gymnasium, where he was first introduced to the art of painting and the work of artists like Vincent van Gogh and

Paul Cézanne Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically d ...

. He later enrolled in the College of Crafts and Arts in

Zagreb Zagreb ( , , , ) is the capital and largest city of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb stands near the international border between Croatia and Slov ...

and soon after he lived in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

for several years, since 1920. His professor in Paris was André Lhote. Šumanović befriended Amedeo Modigliani,

Max Jacob Max Jacob (; 12 July 1876 – 5 March 1944) was a French poet, painter, writer, and critic. Life and career After spending his childhood in Quimper, Brittany, he enrolled in the Paris Colonial School, which he left in 1897 for an artistic ca ...

and various Paris-based Serbian artists and writers such as

Rastko Petrović Rastko Petrović (1898-1949) was a Serbian poet and writer. After serving in the Serbian Army in World War I, he studied law in Paris and became a diplomat. Based at the Yugoslav embassy in Washington, D.C. during World War II, he remained in ...

. In 1924 Šumanović wrote two notable essays, ''Slikar o slikarstvu'' i ''Zašto volim Pusenovo slikarstvo''. Living for a couple of years in Croatia, Šumanović returned to Paris in late 1925, and stayed again for several years, accepting certain influences of the Matisse painting style. Šumanović returned to Šid in 1928 and after another year spent in Paris, eventually settled there in 1930. His major exhibition was at the Belgrade New University in 1939, where he exposed roughly 410 paintings mostly from the Šid period. It was his first major success after many years. He lived quietly in Šid until the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in April 1941, when the Nazi puppet state

led by the Croatian fascist

, occupied Syrmia and began a genocide campaign against

Serbs The Serbs ( sr-Cyr, Срби, Srbi, ) are the most numerous South Slavic ethnic group native to the Balkans in Southeastern Europe, who share a common Serbian ancestry, culture, history and language. The majority of Serbs live in their na ...

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

, and

Romani people The Romani (also spelled Romany or Rromani , ), colloquially known as the Roma, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group, traditionally nomadic itinerants. They live in Europe and Anatolia, and have diaspora populations located worldwide, with sig ...

. When the Independent State of Croatia upon its establishment banned usage of

Serbian Cyrillic The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet ( sr, / , ) is a variation of the Cyrillic script used to write the Serbian language, updated in 1818 by Serbian linguist Vuk Karadžić. It is one of the two alphabets used to write standard modern Serbian, t ...

, Šumanović stopped signing pictures and only put the year.

police arrested Šumanović together with 150 Serbian citizens and took them to a concentration camp in Hrvatska Mitrovica (today Sremska Mitrovica). Šumanović was executed there on 30 August 1942, together with many other Serbs and buried in a common grave in a Serbian Orthodox graveyard.

Style

His early artistic style was characterized by various influences, mainly Cubism but Fauvism and Expressionism as well. In his later works, Sava Šumanović managed to develop his own, rather original artistic expression, which he simply called "the way I know and can." Due to innovations and unique style, Šumanović can be described as one of the most prominent Serbian painters of the twentieth century as well as a major painter from the

Kingdom of Yugoslavia The Kingdom of Yugoslavia ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Kraljevina Jugoslavija, Краљевина Југославија; sl, Kraljevina Jugoslavija) was a state in Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1941. From 1918 ...

Legacy

Predsednik Tito u poseti Galeriji slika Save Šumanovića u Šidu, 19

A museum dedicated to his life and work is located in Šid. His works are also on display in the museums of Belgrade,

Novi Sad Novi Sad ( sr-Cyrl, Нови Сад, ; hu, Újvidék, ; german: Neusatz; see below for other names) is the second largest city in Serbia and the capital of the autonomous province of Vojvodina. It is located in the southern portion of the Pan ...

, Kragujevac,

Zrenjanin Zrenjanin ( sr-Cyrl, Зрењанин, ; hu, Nagybecskerek; ro, Becicherecu Mare; sk, Zreňanin; german: Großbetschkerek) is a city and the administrative center of the Central Banat District in the autonomous province of Vojvodina, Serbi ...

and

Split Split(s) or The Split may refer to: Places * Split, Croatia, the largest coastal city in Croatia * Split Island, Canada, an island in the Hudson Bay * Split Island, Falkland Islands * Split Island, Fiji, better known as Hạfliua Arts, entertai ...

. A gallery devoted to Šumanović's work was established in 1952 based on a gift from Persida Šumanović, the painter's mother. The legacy of 417 works of art, out of which 356 are oil paintings is located in the Šumanović family home (also used as a court). In 1989 the building was renovated and the original exhibition area was expanded from . This enabled a large number of paintings to be exhibited simultaneously. The main activity of the gallery is the preservation and presentation of paintings obtained as gifts. In addition to this, a rich collection of documentary materials has been amassed, as well as an extraordinarily rich Hermoteca (newspaper and periodical library), containing the catalogues from all the exhibitions held until now. Also part of the gallery is the Memorial House of Sava Šumanović, as well as the archaeological collection “Gradina on the Bosut”, and an antique sarcophagus. The artistic circle “Sava Šumanović,” consisting of local amateur painters, also operates within the gallery. Ten years after the gallery had been established, the memorial in honour of Sava Šumanović was initiated, an event which takes place every three years. The July 2019 exhibition of his works organised by the Gallery of Matica Srpska in Cultural Center of Serbia in Paris caused wider media coverage and attention. He is included in

The 100 most prominent Serbs ''The 100 most prominent Serbs'' ( sr-Cyrl, 100 најзнаменитијих Срба) is a book containing the biographies of the hundred most important Serbs compiled by a committee of academicians at the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. ...

list.

Selected works

File:Sava Šumanović - Autoportret (ulje na platnu, 1925).jpg, ''Selfportrait'' (1925) Sava Šumanović - Akt u enterijeru, 1926.jpg, ''Akt u enterijeru'' (1926) Sava Šumanović - Pijana lađa.jpg, ''Pijana lađa'' (1927) Sava Šumanović - Pariska ljubav, 1927.jpg, ''Love from Paris'' (1927) Sava Šumanović - Luncheon on the Grass.jpg, ''Luncheon on the Grass'' (1927) MORNING 1929.JPG, ''Morning'' (1929) Sava Šumanović - Bar u Parizu (1929).jpg, ''Bar u Parizu'' (1929) Sava Šumanović - Seoska kuća, 1932.jpg, ''Seoska kuća'' (1932) Sava Šumanović - Proleće u šidskim baštama (1934).jpg, ''Proleće u šidskim baštama'' (1934) Sava Šumanović - Pred proleće, 1934.jpg, ''Pred proleće'' (1934) Sava Šumanović - Poluležeći ženski akt na divanu, 1934.jpg, ''Half-lying female nude on the couch'' (1934) Sava Šumanović - Ženski akt u crvenoj fotelji, 1934.jpg, ''Ženski akt u crvenoj fotelji'' (1934) Sava Šumanović - Šid under Snow.jpg, ''Šid under Snow'' (1935) Sumanovic Elm.jpg, ''Elm ''(1939)

References

External links