Salon Galić is

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, enter ...

's oldest exhibition space, located in the heart of the town on

Marmont Auguste Frédéric Louis Viesse de Marmont, duc de Raguse (; 20 July 1774 – 22 March 1852) was a French general and nobleman who rose to the rank of Marshal of the Empire and was awarded the title (). In the Peninsular War Marmont succeeded th ...

Street 3. It was founded by

Hrvace Hrvace is a village and a municipality in Croatia in the Split-Dalmatia County. Demographics In the 2011 census, it had a total population of 3,617, in the following naselja, settlements: * Dabar, Split-Dalmatia County, Dabar, population 22 * D ...

-born artisan Ivan Galić in May 1924 and was the only art gallery in Split during the

interbellum In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period, also known as the interbellum (), lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days) – from the end of World War I (WWI) to the beginning of World War II ( ...

. In the aforementioned period, the gallery hosted exhibitions of artists that would soon become the undisputed greats of Croatian art, including

Emanuel Vidović Emanuel Božidar Vidović (24 December 1870 – 1 June 1953) was a Croatian painter and graphic artist from Split. Emanuel Vidović was instrumental in bringing the modern art ideas to Split. From 1900 he was an active member of the Literary-Ar ...

, Angjeo Uvodić,

Ivan Meštrović Ivan Meštrović (; 15 August 1883 – 16 January 1962) was a Croatian and Yugoslav sculptor, architect, and writer. He was the most prominent modern Croatian sculptor and a leading artistic personality in contemporary Zagreb. He studied at Pa ...

, Antun Motika, Branislav Dešković, the

Earth Group The Earth Group () was a Croatian arts collective active in Zagreb, Croatia from 1929 to 1935, when it was banned. The group aimed to defend their artistic independence against foreign influences such as Impressionism or Neoclassicism and ''art for ...

and many others. It remains prominent and prestigious within the Croatian art scene and has since become one of Croatia's most popular and acclaimed cultural destinations, hosting over fifteen exhibitions a year and numerous other related happenings, including the Splitgraphic Biennial and the Radoslav Putar Awards. It has been managed by Croatian Association of Visual Artists since 1961, and in the six decades that followed hosted over a thousand exhibitions. In 2014, the Ministry of Culture declared Salon Galić a cultural asset by the Directorate for the Protection of Cultural Heritage. In 2024, the gallery celebrated its

100th birthday 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to sp ...

with a universally praised retrospective by Sandi Bulimbašić and Jasminka Babić.

History and development

Salon Galić was the only art gallery during the interwar period dedicated to the artists' practical need for presentation. Although the Fine Arts Gallery in Split was established in 1931, it did not host exhibitions until 1950. Before the gallery's inception in 1924, the spatial options for artists to exhibit their work were mostly limited to shop windows on the city square, the

foyer A lobby is a room in a building used for entry from the outside. Sometimes referred to as a foyer, entryway, reception area or entrance hall, it is often a large room or complex of rooms (in a theatre, opera house, concert hall, showroom, cine ...

in the Croatian National Theatre and select rooms in the Male

Real school Real school (, ) is a type of secondary school in Germany, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. It has also existed in Croatia (''realna gimnazija''), the Austrian Empire, the German Empire, Denmark and Norway (''realskole''), Sweden (''realskola''), F ...

, the Cindro Palace and the Bishop's Palace. Possible somewhat viable exhibition spaces also included rooms in the first building of Domald Street and in the

secession Secession is the formal withdrawal of a group from a Polity, political entity. The process begins once a group proclaims an act of secession (such as a declaration of independence). A secession attempt might be violent or peaceful, but the goal i ...

ist Hrvatski Dom, built in 1908. The Salon was officially open on May 31, 1924, with the inaugural exhibition of paintings by Angjeo Uvodić and Emanuel Vidović, with the former also presenting

caricatures A caricature is a rendered image showing the features of its subject in a simplified or exaggerated way through sketching, pencil strokes, or other artistic drawings (compare to: cartoon). Caricatures can be either insulting or complimentary, ...

. Art expert and historian Milan Ivanišević collected the original works for a 1994 retrospective, honouring the gallery's 70th anniversary. Even though the town's interwar population, barely exceeding 35,000 people, was mostly

illiterate Literacy is the ability to read and write, while illiteracy refers to an inability to read and write. Some researchers suggest that the study of "literacy" as a concept can be divided into two periods: the period before 1950, when literacy was ...

, the gallery's exhibitions fared commercially well, as the townsfolk were financially supportive for their fellow artist citizens. Most of the original works currently belong to the Gallery of Fine Arts and the City Museum. The Salon's ground floor was built in 1925 on Marmont Street 3, between a

historical History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some theorists categ ...

high-riser of the Prokurative square and the

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau ( ; ; ), Jugendstil and Sezessionstil in German, is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. It was often inspired by natural forms such as the sinuous curves of plants and ...

-inspired Duplančić house. The latter granted Galić the polygonal annex from its south facade while its official position was under construction. Today the Salon's secessionist neighbour and previous home, the multistorey Duplančić building, houses the city photo club's official photo gallery. The building was reinnovated multiple times. According to the Soldatić family archives, the forepart of the Salon was initially a brick facade. It was replaced by the wide and welcoming glass window in 1940. It underwent a more challenging reconstruction in December 1963, as its entire foundation was bolstered with

reinforced concrete Reinforced concrete, also called ferroconcrete or ferro-concrete, is a composite material in which concrete's relatively low tensile strength and ductility are compensated for by the inclusion of reinforcement having higher tensile strength or ...

and other modern materials, in a feat overseen by the Urbanist Bureau employee Berislav Kalogjera, whose simultaneous project, the Bastion Hotel on the north side of Marmont Street, bears a noticeable morphological resemblance to the 1963 redesign of Salon Galić. The "simple, yet elegant" conception of the diagonally recessed facade has been called "a reflection of the subtle and unpretentious architectural styles of the post-war modernist period."

HULU's tenure

Galić passed on the managerial duties to the Croatian Association of Visual Artists (Hrvatske udruge likovnih umjetnika, or HULU Split) after his death in 1961. During its tenure, HULU hosted over a thousand exhibitions by prominent contemporary artists from Croatia, Norway, Sweden, Kosovo, Italy, Israel, Spain, Germany, Japan, Vietnam and numerous other countries, and other art-related happenings, including the annual Radoslav Putar Awards. For their artistic and humanitarian work, the Split-based Association has amassed numerous awards and orders, including the Split City Coat of Arms for Outstanding Contributions to the Development and Reputation of the City of Split, an honorary distinction from the Croatian Community of Independent Artists and an accolade from the Central Hospital for a charitable art auction featuring members' paintings for the Children's Clinic in Split.

Activities

From 1924 to 1942, Salon Galić hosted 120 exhibitions of the most prominent and lauded Croatian artists, including Emanuel Vidović, Angjeo Uvodić, Ivan Mirković,

Tomislav Krizman Tomislav Krizman (1882–1955), was a Croatian Painting, painter, graphic artist, costume and set designer, teacher, author and organizer of cultural events. He painted in oil painting, oils and tempera, although he is principally remembered for ...

Marino Tartaglia Marino Tartaglia (3 August 1894 – 21 April 1984) was a Croatian painter and art teacher, for many years a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, Zagreb. From 1948 he was a member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts. He received t ...

Ignjat Job Ignjat "Ignjo" Job ( sr-Cyrl, Игњат Јоб; 28 March 1895 – 28 April 1936) was an important representative of colour expressionism in the art scene of Yugoslavia during the 1930s. Job's landscapes of Dalmatia are reminiscent of the style o ...

, Juraj Plančić,

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 ...

, Vjekoslav Parać, Antun Zuppa, Branislav Dešković,

Vladimir Becić Vladimir Becić (1886–1954) was a Croatian painter, best known for his early work in Munich, which had a strong influence on the direction of modern art in Croatia. Becić studied painting in Munich at the prestigious Academy of Arts along wit ...

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 ...

Zlatko Šulentić Zlatko Šulentić (16 March 1893 – 9 July 1971) was a Croatian Painting, painter of landscapes and portraits. He was one of the second generation of Croatian modern painters, a follower of the Croatian art of the 20th century#Munich Circle, Mu ...

Vladimir Varlaj Vladimir Varlaj (25 August 1895 – 15 August 1962) was a Croatian artist, a member of the Group of Four during the Zagreb Spring Salon of the 1920s, and a founder of the Independent Group of Artists. He was influential in the Zagreb modern art ...

Jozo Kljaković Jozo Kljaković (3 March 188910 October 1969) was a Croatia, Croatian painter. He studied in Prague and then at an Arts institute in Rome. He also studied fresco painting in Paris. Kljaković was professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb f ...

, Antun Motika and many others. Among the contemporary and future greats, the ambitious contributions from the groundbreaking

, namely Krsto and Željko Hegedušić,

Antun Augustinčić Antun Augustinčić (4 May 1900 – 10 May 1979) was a Croatian sculptor active in Yugoslavia and the United States. Along with Ivan Meštrović and Frano Kršinić, he is considered one of the three most important Croatian sculptors of the 2 ...

, Petar Smajić,

Frano Kršinić Frano Kršinić (24 July 1897 – 1 January 1982) was a Croatian sculptor active in former Yugoslavia. Along with Ivan Meštrović and Antun Augustinčić, he is considered one of the three most important Croatian sculptors of the 20th cent ...

and

Ivan Generalić Ivan Generalić (December 21, 1914 – November 27, 1992) was a Croatian painter in the naïve tradition. Biography Generalić was born in Hlebine near Koprivnica. In elementary school, painting lessons were his greatest joy and as a child ...

are also worth mentioning. As most of the Earth Group members were not affirmed yet, Salon Galić was instrumental in creating names as Augustinčić and Smajić. Salon Galić was also a popular destination for other artists, as numerous writers including novelist

Dinko Šimunović Dinko Šimunović (1 September 1873 – 3 August 1933) was a Croatian writer. Dinko Šimunović was born in Knin. He spent almost two decades as a teacher in villages of the Zagora, the hinterland of Dalmatia. He retired in 1927 and moved to Z ...

, poet

Tin Ujević Augustin Josip "Tin" Ujević (; 5 July 1891 – 12 November 1955) was a Croatian poet, considered by many to be the greatest poet in 20th century Croatian literature. From 1921, he ceased to sign his name as Augustin, thereafter using the sig ...

and poetry-prose writer

Vladimir Nazor Vladimir Nazor (30 May 1876 – 19 June 1949) was a Croatian poet and politician. During and after World War II in Yugoslavia, he served as the first President of the Presidency of the Croatian Parliament (Croatian head of state), and first ...

frequented the Salon. The legendary Ujević dubbed founder Ivan Galić a "chef of taste" (''šef ukusa''). An exhibition of grave historical importance was the 1925 collective effort of Slovene artists and their

expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

-inspired paintings, including the works of

Božidar Jakac Božidar Jakac (July 16, 1899 – November 20, 1989) was a Slovene Yugoslavian e xpressionist, realist and symbolist painter, printmaker, art teacher, photographer and filmmaker. He produced one of the most extensive oeuvres of pastels and ...

, France and

Tone Kralj Tone Kralj (23 August 1900 – 9 September 1975) was a Slovene sculptor and painter also known for his wall paintings and illustrations. Kralj was born in Zagorica near Dobrepolje in Lower Carniola in 1900. He studied sculpture in Prague bet ...

Veno Pilon Veno Pilon (22 September 1896 – 23 September 1970) was a Slovene expressionist painter, graphic artist and photographer. He was born and died in Ajdovščina. Biography Pilon was born in Ajdovščina, then part of the Austro-Hungarian prov ...

, Fran Stiplovšek, Drago and Nando Vidmar and Fran Zupan. Among the works, the most successful one was the ''Jajčarice'' by France Kralj, inspired by German expressionism. The work today is stored in the collection of the Fine Arts Gallery and received a resurgence in interest as a seminal piece of the centennial retrospective in 2024. One of the most progressive artist collectives in interwar Yugoslavia, the Belgrade-based ''Oblik'' group held an influential exhibition in May 1930, inspired by the contemporary French scene opposed to the dominant one of Germany, where the works of Nikola Bešević,

Jovan Bijelić Jovan Bijelić ( sr-cyr, Јован Бијелић ( – 12 March 1964) was a painter and academic. Bijelić is one of the most important representatives of color expressionism in Yugoslavia. The Department of Fine Arts and Music of the Serbia ...

Petar Dobrović Petar Dobrović ( sr-Cyrl, Петар Добровић; ; 14 January 1890 – 27 January 1942) was a Serbian painter and politician. Biography Dobrović was born in Pécs, Kingdom of Hungary. A proponent of Serbian colorism, he was known for ...

, Anton Hutter, Đorđe Andrejević Kun, Veljko Stanojević, Zora Petrović and Ivan Radović were bought by then-mayor dr. Ivo Tartaglia. Other revolutionary exhibitions included the Independent Group of Croatian Artists and the aforementioned Earth Group, which exhibited under the name Group of Croatian Painters, as they were banned from performing for their highly concentrated social critique ans its

left-wing Left-wing politics describes the range of Ideology#Political ideologies, political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy either as a whole or of certain social ...

political opinions in April 1935. The Gallery of Fine Arts bought works by

Edo Kovačević Edo Kovačević (16 November 1906 – 15 March 1993) was a Croatian artist, best known for his colourful landscapes and views of suburban Zagreb. He worked mainly in oils and pastels, using subtle colour harmonies and lively brush strokes to bring ...

, Antun Mezdjić, Antun Šimek and Vilim Svečnjak. Svečnjak's work ''Komedijaši'' is a feature in the Gallery's regular repertoire. Emanuel Vidović returned to exhibit in 1939 and 1941, presenting a new brand of poetics exploring

still life A still life (: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, human-m ...

thematically via the interiors of the

and

Trogir Cathedral The Cathedral of St. Lawrence (, ) is a Roman Catholic triple-naved basilica constructed in Romanesque- Gothic in Trogir, Croatia. Since its construction lasted several centuries, it illustrates all the styles that succeeded one another in Dalmat ...

. The gallery stopped its practice during the Second World War, but returned in the summer of 1945. From 1946 to 1949 the Salon hosted annually the First of May Exhibitions of the Dalmatian branch of the Croatian Association of Fine Artists, to both critical and commercial acclaim. Salon Galić also featured a prolific range of caricature-based exhibitions, the most popular being the satirical creations that shared the poetical principles of the artists behind the pre-war magazine ''Duje Balavac''. Beside the 1924 and 1926 Angjeo Uvodić exhibitions, caricaturists that took their works to Salon Galić included Ivan Mirković in 1928, Ladislav Kondor in 1939, Uroš Marović in the two pre-WW2 years and Milan Tolić in 1961. Mirko vić also exhibited sculptures and in the steps of Uvodić provided essayistic commentary prommoting caricatures an artistic medium.

International guests

Salon Galić attracted a wide and vast array of international artists during the interwar period. Russian-born painters Aleksanar Lažečnikov and Ilija Ahmetov exhibited two eclectic and expressive efforts in 1925 and 1929, respectively. Inspired by Split's old urban core, Austrian painter and graphic designer Wilhelm Saure created a piece that was planned to express sentiments of an old, historical and raw town, exhibited in 1926. Ukrainian artist Ipolit Danilovič Majkovski undersigns three stylistically different and well-received exhibitions, in 1927, 1930 and 1937. International artists that have exhibited in Salon Galić also include Bulgarian post-impressionist painter Nikola Tanev (in 1930), German architect

Walter von Wecus Walter may refer to: People and fictional characters * Walter (name), including a list of people and fictional and mythical characters with the given name or surname * Little Walter, American blues harmonica player Marion Walter Jacobs (1930–19 ...

(in 1933 and 1935, with the former garnering a record-high audience attendance for the time, according to Stanko Piplović), Dutch-based painter and writer J. B. Kobè (in 1935), painters Hans Gassebner from Germany and Philip Ullott from England in a joint exhibition (in 1939, with the latter's "skillfully composed watercolour full of liveliness" attracting public interest), Czech artist Alois Lecoque (in 1940) and in the same year, Berlin-born Rudolf Bunk, who moved to Split after his exhibition, inspired by

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, ...

and

Picasso Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...

Other activities

Salon Galić also mediated various administrative businesses. By 1927, the only school building in Split was the Male Real School. Drafts for building the first

primary school A primary school (in Ireland, India, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, South Africa, and Singapore), elementary school, or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ...

in Lučac from Split, Zagreb, Ljubljana and Paris were presented at Salon Galić on January 16 the same year. Complications with the municipal board however proved decisive with the project's completion, and the block Manuš homed the first elementary school building in 1930.S. Piplović, ''Izgradnja Splita između svjetskih radova'', p. 174.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Galić, Salon Buildings and structures completed in 1925 Art museums and galleries established in 1924 1924 establishments in Croatia 1925 establishments in Croatia Museums established in 1924 1949 establishments in Croatia History of Split, Croatia Art museums and galleries established in 1925 Modernist architecture in Croatia Yugoslav Croatian architecture