Vladimir Becić (1886–1954) was a

Croat The Croats (; hr, Hrvati ) are a South Slavic ethnic group who share a common Croatian ancestry, culture, history and language. They are also a recognized minority in a number of neighboring countries, namely Austria, the Czech Republic, Ge ...

ian painter, best known for his early work in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

, which had a strong influence on the direction of modern art 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 ...

. Becić studied painting in

at the prestigious Academy of Arts along with

Oskar Herman Oskar Herman (1886–1974) was a Croatian-Jewish painter. He was one of the group of Croatian artists known as the Munich Circle, who had a strong influence on modern art in Croatia. Biography Herman was born on 17 March 1886 in Zagreb to Croa ...

Miroslav Kraljević Miroslav Kraljević (14 December 1885 – 16 April 1913) was a Croatian painter, printmaker and sculptor, active in the early part of the 20th century. He is one of the founders of modern art in Croatia. Kraljević studied painting in Vienna an ...

and

Josip Račić Josip Račić (22 March 1885 – 19 June 1908) was a Croatian painter in the early 20th century. Although he died very young (he was only 23), and his work was mostly created during his student years, he is one of the best known modern Croatian p ...

. This group of Croatian artists are known as the Munich Circle or Munich Four, and are very important figures in Croatian art of the 20th century. After Munich, Becić spent 2 years studying and working in Paris before returning to

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 ...

in 1910. During the First World War, Vladimir Becić worked as a war artist on the

Salonika front The Macedonian front, also known as the Salonica front (after Thessaloniki), was a military theatre of World War I formed as a result of an attempt by the Allied Powers to aid Serbia, in the autumn of 1915, against the combined attack of German ...

producing a series of images of the soldiers and wounded. Following the end of the war, he spent time in a village near

Sarajevo Sarajevo ( ; cyrl, Сарајево, ; ''see names in other languages'') is the capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 275,524 in its administrative limits. The Sarajevo metropolitan area including Sarajevo ...

, where he painted landscapes and rural subjects in a style that used colour and tonal variations to depict form and space. Becić was a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb (1924–1947), and a 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 J ...

from 1934.

Biography

Vladimir Becić was born in

Slavonski Brod Slavonski Brod (), commonly shortened to simply Brod, is a city in eastern Croatia, near the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina. Being one of the principal cities in the historical regions of Slavonia and Posavina, Slavonski Brod was the 7th large ...

on 1 June 1886. He initially studied law in

and attended private art school of Menci Clement Crnčić and Bela Čikoš Sesija. In 1905, he gave up his law studies for art, moving to Munich where he first studied with

Heinrich Knirr Heinrich Knirr (2 September 1862 – 26 May 1944) was an Austrian-born German painter, known for genre scenes and portraits, although he also did landscapes and still-lifes. He is best-known for creating the official portrait of Adolf Hitler fo ...

, and then at the Academy of Arts. In 1909, he went to Paris where he enrolled in the Academy La Grande Chaumiére and worked as a draftsman at the magazine ''Le Rire''. He returned to Zagreb in 1910, where he staged his first solo exhibit. He exhibited his artworks as a part of Kingdom of Serbia's

pavilion In architecture, ''pavilion'' has several meanings: * It may be a subsidiary building that is either positioned separately or as an attachment to a main building. Often it is associated with pleasure. In palaces and traditional mansions of Asia ...

at International Exhibition of Art of 1911. Becić then worked in Osijek, Belgrade and Bitolj. He joined the Serbian army shortly before the outbreak of the First World War.Nina Ožegović: Nepoznati crteži Vladimira Becića: Ratna tajna slikarskog klasika, Nacional, br. 655, 2008-06-02; pristupljeno 3. ožujka 2014. He was then a war correspondent and artist for the magazine "''L'Illustration''" on the Salonika front, creating a series of images of the soldiers and the wounded. In 1919, he held his second solo exhibit, also in Zagreb. From 1919 to 1923, Vladimir Becić lived and worked in the village of Blažuj near

, producing a series of oils and watercolours of landscapes, peasants and shepherds that show an increasingly mature style of tonal painting using colour forms for rounded volume and space. He then moved back to Zagreb, where he taught in the

Academy of Fine Arts The following is a list of notable art schools. Accredited non-profit art and design colleges * Adelaide Central School of Art * Alberta College of Art and Design * Art Academy of Cincinnati * Art Center College of Design * The Art Institute ...

(Croatian: Akademija likovnih umjetnosti) (1924–1947). In 1930, Vladimir Becić, together with

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 ...

and

Jerolim Miše Jerolim Miše (25 September 1890 – 14 September 1970), was a Croatian painter, teacher, and art critic. He painted portraits, still lifes and landscapes of his native Dalmatia. A member of the Group of Three, Group of Four, and the Independent ...

formed "''Group Three''" (Grupa trojice). Becić became a member of the

in 1934, at that time called the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Art. Vladimir Becić died in

on 24 May 1954.

Legacy

The beginnings of modernity in the Croatian art are primarily linked to the Munich Cycle of painters some of whose key works are housed in the Museum of Contemporary Art collection. These include oil paintings by Vladimir Becic dating back to the period 1910–1922, the most important phase in his artistic career, including works from the early 40s. Vladimir Becić's earliest works date from the time of the Munich school, and together with the works of

and

, they point to a new direction in Croatian modern painting. Moving away from traditional academic styles, they are strongly influenced by Leibl's realism, and the works of Impressionist artists such as

Manet A wireless ad hoc network (WANET) or mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a decentralized type of wireless network. The network is ad hoc because it does not rely on a pre-existing infrastructure, such as routers in wired networks or access points ...

whose work they saw in an exhibit of 1907. Other influences at that time were Velázquez and

Goya Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 174616 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and e ...

. Becić's later works show an approach that is closer to Cézanne, and emphasizing the structure and geometric shapes. His artistic expression was focused towards modeling and clarity. His sketches in oil, and especially watercolour, express the freshness of the immediate experience. He uses rich colour expression, and tone shaping for strong volume. Some insights on Vladimir Becić can be derived from his self-portraits, which he painted from his youngest days until just before his death. They are especially remarkable as they cover his time in Munich, then Paris and finally Osijek. Compared to the contemporary self-portraits of Joseph Racic and Miroslav Kraljevic, the Becic self-portraits are simpler, but show a full and complete expression. His early paintings, above all, show an accurate observation of form, subject and body and their spatial relationships rendered by a trained and skilful hand. The style of his later work owes something to the widespread tendency in Europe to return to nature in all things cultural and artistic after the First World War, and the influence of post-cubism - emphasizing the importance of construction. For Becić, nature was not a shelter, but an incentive, a great teacher of life, order, organization. According to

Miroslav Krleža Miroslav Krleža (; 7 July 1893 – 29 December 1981) was a Yugoslav and Croatian writer who is widely considered to be the greatest Croatian writer of the 20th century. He wrote notable works in all the literary genres, including poetry (''Ba ...

, Becić holds a deservedly high place in the history of Croatian modern art. Measured with Račić and Kraljević, he is not simply one of three, but is completely different. In 2006, the Croatian Post Office issued a set of stamps depicting Croatian art, one of which was Becić's ''Still Life'' of 1909.

Works

* Guslar (Guslac) 1906 * Nude Study (Studija Akta) 1906 * Woman Nude in Front of Mirror (Ženski Akt pred ogledalom) 1906 * Oak (Hrast) 1907 * Nude Girl at a Table (Akt djevojcica kod stola) 1907 * Nude with Newspaper (Ženski akt s novinama) 1907 * Nude in Front of Mirror (Akt pred ogledalom) 1908 * Girl with Doll (Djevojčica s lutkom) 1908 * Portrait of Miroslav Kraljević (Portret Miroslava Kraljevića) 1908 * Self-portrait with Hat (Autoportret sa polucilindrom) 1908 * Still Life (Mrtva Priroda) 1909 * Watermelons (Lubenice) 1911 * Hill Landscape with Stream (Planinski pejzaž s potokom) 1923 * Vera 1926 * Peasant Woman (Saljanka) 1926 * Fisherman (Ribar) 1932 * Girl with Flower (Djevojka s cvijecem) 1933 * Small Meadows (Male sjenokoše) 1934 * Boy with Corn (Dječak s kukuruzom) 1935 * Crabs (Rakovi) 1936 * Ragotin 1937 * Tovarenje ugljena, 1938 * Samoborski pejsaž, 1941.

Exhibitions

Solo shows

* 1910 in Zagreb * 1919 in Zagreb * 1984 Vladimir Becic - Umjetnicki paviljon / Art Pavilion Zagreb, Zagreb * 2005 Adris Gallery, Rovinj Vladimir Becić, Svjedok Istine Postojanja

Group shows

* 1973 Paintings of the Munich Circle - Umjetnicki paviljon / Art Pavilion Zagreb, Zagreb * 2007 Iz fundusa galerije - Museum of Modern Art Dubrovnik, Dubrovnik * 2008 From the holdings of the museum - Museum of Modern Art Dubrovnik, Dubrovnik

Dealers

* Galerija Kaptol, Zagreb Croatia

Public collections

* Museum of Modern Art Dubrovnik, Dubrovnik, Croatia * Gallery of Fine Arts / Galerija likovnih umjetnosti, Osijek, Osijek, Croatia * MMSU - Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Rijeka, Rijeka, Croatia * Galerija Umjetnina Split, Split, Croatia * MSU Muzej Suvremene Umjetnosti / Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, Croatia

Online gallery

Online gallery of paintings at Gallery Adris

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Becic, Vladimir 1886 births 1954 deaths Croatian artists Croatian painters Post-impressionist painters Academic staff of the University of Zagreb Members of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts People from Slavonski Brod Academy of Fine Arts, Munich alumni Alumni of the Académie de la Grande Chaumière People from Slavonia Burials at Mirogoj Cemetery