Milivoj Uzelac, 1930. Gouache

Description

Milivoj Uzelac (Mostar, July 23, 1897 – Cotignac, France, June 6, 1977), Croatian painter.
His roots are from the Similan region.
In Banja Luka, he attends high school, where he meets and hangs out with Vilk Gecan, another classic of Croatian modern art. He started painting there, and in 1912 he moved with his family to Zagreb, where he occasionally attended the Academy under the leadership of Tomislav Krizman and later Oton Iveković. After the outbreak of the First World War, he fled from mobilization to Prague, where he worked with the Czech painter Jan Preisler. There, together with three other painters (Vilko Gecan, Marijan Trepše and Vladimir Varlaj), he formed the Group of Four, and also came into contact with the art of expressionism, in the style of which their group would create the most. At the end of the war in 1919, he returned to Zagreb, where he and the other members of the group regularly exhibits his works at the Spring Salon. During this period, his most famous masterpieces are created. In 1923, he moves to Paris, where he gains a high reputation. He remains in France until his death.
In 1971, his first retrospective exhibition was held in the Modern Gallery in Zagreb. From November 27, 2008 to January 11, 2009, his second retrospective exhibition was held in the Art Pavilion in Zagreb, which brought together paintings from a large number of galleries, private collections, as well as his previously unknown works.