Jerolim Miše. Portrait of Mirko Rački. 1917. Oil on canvas.

Description

Jerolim Miše (Split, September 25, 1890 - Split, September 14, 1970) was a Croatian painter, known for his oeuvre of paintings of loose themes and still lifes.

After his education in his native Split, Jerolim Miše began his studies at the then Temporary Higher School of Arts and Crafts in Zagreb in 1910/11. He was very quickly expelled from the Academy due to criticism published in the newspaper Zvono, in which he attacked his professor Menci Klement Crnčić. He continued his studies in Rome at the Instituto di Belle Arti, then went to the Academy in Florence and continued his studies in 1913-14.

After that, he spent 1922 on a study trip to Munich, Berlin and Dresden, where he got to know the old masters and Cézanne's painting. Then on two occasions (1925 and 1929) he went to Paris, which had a decisive effect on him, and there he matured artistically.

From 1917 to 1937, he worked as a high school teacher in Krapina, Slavonski Brod and Zagreb. From 1937 he taught at the Academy of Arts in Belgrade, and in 1941 he returned to Zagreb, where from 1943 he taught at the Academy of Fine Arts, where he would work until his retirement in 1961.

He held his first solo exhibition in Split in 1914, then exhibited with the Group of Independents (Ljubo Babić, Vladimir Becić, Jozo Kljaković, Frano Kršinić, Ivan Meštrović, Jerolim Miše, Marin Studin, Zlatko Šulentić, Vladimir Varlaj),[1] then with With the Group of Four (Babić - Becić Miše, Vanka) or with the Group of Three (Babić - Becić - Miše). He exhibited at collective Yugoslav exhibitions in Paris (1919) and London (1930). He held solo exhibitions in Split, Slavonski Brod, Rijeka, Zadar, Zagreb and Belgrade.

He will be permanently remembered for his expressionist portraits, pictures of drunken parties and debauchery, self-portraits and numerous still lifes. Small landscapes of Brač, Šolta, Krk, Korčula and the Dubrovnik area were particularly appealing to him.

Jerolim Miše died on September 14, 1970 in Split.