Frano Šimunović. Oil on canvas.

Šimunović, Frano, Croatian painter (Dicmo near Sinja, October 10, 1908 – Zagreb, March 28, 1995). Son of writer D. Šimunović. Graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1934 (Lj. Babić, J. Kljaković). Member of JAZU (now HAZU) since 1963. He spent a year in Madrid, where he copied the works of D. Velázquez and F. Goya in the Prado Museum and drew expressive, often grotesque figural compositions and landscapes in the Madrid suburbs. In the period 1935–41. painted landscapes from Dalmatia in more intense colors with the visible influence of V. van Gogh (Cypress,1936; olive grove, 1940; pink landscape, 1941). For II. during the World War he mainly made drawings with the themes of fugitives and camps (map of drawings Women in the camp, 1942), but also paintings inspired by Goya's works (Circus, 1944). After the war, he recorded landscapes from Dalmatian Zagora, mainly fences, mounds, borders and patches of arable land (Vrlička gradina, 1952), which will remain his main painting preoccupation. In the analysis of the harsh landscape of Zagora, the palette calmed down to muted tonal relationships (black, brown, green), and some surfaces are delimited by white lines that dynamize the surface and give the picture an always different rhythm (Come, 1954; stone hill, 1956). From the 1960s, by summarizing geometric elements and further reducing colors and tonal relationships, he approached abstraction (Old borders, 1962; disappearing, 1971; Old apparitions, 1973; Shadows of rocks, 1977). Condensation of expressions and disintegration of motifs in light are the main determinants of works from the latter period (Ancient traces, 1985; Ruins, 1988). He is a distinct example of a painter with a consistent stylistic synthesis who, growing out of his homeland, created universal symbolism with exceptional suggestive power using a contemporary artistic language. Illustrated by the Grimms Fairy tales (1958) and short stories by D. Šimunović Duga i Alcar (1959). He donated part of his paintings and statues of his wife K. Kantoci to the Bishopric of Mostar (1992) and the Modern Gallery (today the National Museum of Modern Art) in Zagreb (1994). He received the "Vladimir Nazor" Award for Lifetime Achievement (1972).