The annual award of the Croatian Society of Art Historians for exhibition in 2025 awarded to the exhibition project “In the Beginning Was the Kingdom”

Dear visitors,

we are pleased to inform you that the Committee for the Award of the Croatian Society of Art Historians for 2025, has awarded the exhibition project “In the Beginning Was the Kingdom”, an exhibition on the occasion of 1100 years of the Croatian Kingdom, in the category of exhibition activities. The recipients of the award are the Klovićevi dvori Gallery and the authors of the exhibition Dr. Dino Milinović, Dr. Tomislav Galović, Dr. Trpimir Vedriš and exhibition curator Iva Sudec Andreis. The exhibition was the crowning event of the jubilee year 2025, dedicated to the celebration of the 1100th anniversary of the Croatian Kingdom, and was held under the high patronage of the Government of the Republic of Croatia and in the coordination of the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia.

In addition to the Klovićevi dvori Gallery, the most significant national institutions participated in the organization of the exhibition: the Croatian State Archives, the Croatian History Museum, the Museum of Croatian Archaeological Monuments in Split and the National and University Library in Zagreb. The Zagreb Archdiocese, the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts and the Permanent Exhibition of Church Art in Zadar made a special contribution to the exhibition. In addition to colleagues from the aforementioned institutions, over fifty experts from all over Croatia and abroad worked on the exhibition setup and accompanying catalogue, and more than a hundred museum employees, archivists, conservators, restorers, technical staff and preparators prepared the exhibits and other materials.

The exhibition covered the historical span from the beginning of the 9th century to 1918, offering a chronologically and thematically structured overview. The value of the exhibition also lies in the fact that 400 exhibits were brought from a number of institutions, many of which are rarely available to the public view. A large number of these objects were exhibited for the first time in such a synthetic context, as element of a narrative that goes beyond the partial identity of an individual work of art or document.

The accompanying catalogue, concieved as a scientific monograph with numerous contributions by a large number of authors is a relevant reference work for future professional and scientific insights. The lively expert discussions that accompanied the exhibition reminded us of the constant need to reexamine methodological approaches and to improve professional dialogue.