Oton Iveković – a retrospective exhibition

Klovićevi dvori Gallery is preparing a retrospective exhibition of painter Oton Iveković for the spring of 2023. After numerous successes of our modern painting – exhibitions on Vlaho Bukovac, Mate Celestin Medović, Menci Clement Crnčić, we wish to present the works of yet another leading artist of Croatian modernity, within which he stood out as the most prolific and prominent author of historical painting.

The Kiss of Peace of the Croatian Nobles to King Koloman, 1906, Croatian Institute of History, Zagreb

Iveković began his education with F. Quiquerez in Zagreb. From 1886 he studied in Vienna, and later in Munich and Karlsruhe. He worked as a drawing teacher at a Zagreb high school and at the Craft School (1895), and from 1908 he was a lecturer at the Art School (later the Academy of Fine Arts). He was a military painter during World War I. Towards the end of his life, he retired to Veliki Tabor castle in the Hrvatsko Zagorje region.

With an academic approach to painting, he created historical compositions that radiated with patriotic and romantic enthusiasm. Elements of pointillism and Vlaho Bukovac’s “colorful palette” are also present in his work. Genre-scenes, landscape sketches and watercolors are where his work is most forward and audacious. He also painted large wall paintings of folkloric, allegorical and religious content (Zagreb, Požega, Kansas City, Križevci). During his lifetime, Iveković painted more than a thousand paintings, engaged in fresco painting, graphic design of books, magazines and posters, illustration, and scenography and costume design. Throughout his life, he appeared in the press as an art commentator, travel writer and polemicist.

After his death, Iveković’s work fell by the wayside. His reaffirmation took place after a retrospective exhibition in 1995 in the Art Pavilion. This exhibition showed the variety and quality of Iveković’s works. From that point, numerous works of Iveković have been found that were only occasionally exhibited. The aim of this exhibition is to present new research on his work.

Interesting Read, 1901, NMMU, Zagreb

Woodcutters, 1909, NMMU, Zagreb

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