Dubrovnik Map

The History of the Building and the Museum

The Museum of Modern Art Dubrovnik was founded in 1945.The building now occupied by the Museum of Modern Art Dubrovnik was originally conceived and built (1935-1939) as the showcase residential mansion of Dubrovnik ship owner Božo Banac, and in 1948 it was converted into exhibition premises and museum. It was designed by the well-known Croatian architects Lavoslav Horvat and Harold Bilinić in the neo-Renaissance-cum-Gothic style, along the lines of masterpieces of Dubrovnik urban and villa Renaissance architecture (the Rector’s Palace, the Divona/Sponza, the Sorkočević Villa and so on).

Through the conversion works, nine exhibition rooms were created, along with two store rooms and some smaller working areas. Together with the large terraces looking on to the sea and its garden, the Museum has 900 square metres of indoor and over 1100 square metres of outdoor exhibition space.

By the decision of The City of Dubrovnik, The Museum of Modern Art has obtained the use of Gallery Dulčić Masle Pulitika at Držićeva poljana 1, Dubrovnik and in 2008 it has obtained the use of Studio Pulitika, Fortress of St. John, Dubrovnik.

Creating the core of the holdings of the Museum of Modern Art Dubrovnik art of the end of the 19 th century, that is, the beginning of the Croatian Modern period. But it is also very much interested in everything that has happened after that, and, of course, in the contemporary moment of Croatian and world art. Hence all these things need to be adjusted and harmonised with each other, an interaction between the present and the past, and local, national and international geographical locations. It is then also necessary to revive slightly-known oeuvres of the past, to work on insufficiently known aspects of modern classics and their works, to introduce and catalyse the work of talented young artists who live in or come from Dubrovnik and the Dubrovnik region. And, what is most important, it is also essential to facilitate creative encounters between this area and the work of artists of world importance.

Bearing in mind the givens as they exist, this kind of conception seems completely natural. It is our aim, whatever is involved, whatever personality, age, style, medium, to maintain a high level of quality in the art material and the presentation of it. The Museum of Modern Art Dubrovnik as a museum of modern and contemporary art simply has to be a model for the presentation of art, a model and parameter of value.

Such aspirations led to the idea of working together with curators with major world reputations who through their knowledge, influence and commitment are capable of bringing the world to Dubrovnik, and sending Dubrovnik out to the world. Of course, Dubrovnik has never been a simple tabula rasa in the visual arts world, but now it was necessary to put the whole thing on a very firm conceptual base, that is, to achieve a clearly profiled, lasting and fruitful activity tending towards growth, strengthening and development.

Thus during 2002 and 2003 we established good working relations with Ms Catherine David, highly respected world-reputed art historian, earlier a curator of the Pompidou Centre in Paris and at the Jeu de Paume, director of Kassel Documenta X, and the current director of the Rotterdam Witte de With Museum – and together worked out the plan and ultimate exhibition called Dubrovnik – Here and Elsewhere / Dubrovnik – ici et allieurs .

Similarly, during summer 2002, the exhibition Perception was put on, created jointly with the French gallery manager Jean de Breyne.

In 2003 the Gallery mounted a major exhibition of works from the Thyssen Bornemisza contemporary art collection, which was given the title Brightness . This show presented works by some of the most important artists of the present time.

In the same series of shows, summer 2004 saw a retrospective by an artist with a major international reputation, Braco Dimitrijević and in 2006 a solo exhibtion by international artist Jan Fabre.

In cooperation with Kunstmuseum Mülheim an der Ruhr in der Alten Post and Swiss private collectors, in the Summer of 2008 an exhibition of Pablo Picasso’s prints was put on in the Museum.
In 2009 there were two international exhibitions: Jan Fabre-Le temps emprunté / Borrowed time, and, in collaboration with ETH Collection of prints and drawings from Zürich, American printmaking since 1960. In association with the Alberto Giacometti Foundation, Kunsthaus of Zurich, in the Summer of 2010 an exhibition of Alberto Giacometti’s sculptures, paintings, prints and drawings took place in the Museum entitled Alberto Giacometti-Sculptor of the 20th century soul.

Inherent in all these events is a sketch plan for the future work of the Museum of Modern Art Dubrovnik, an important point of reference in making the city of Dubrovnik once again a metropolis, in promoting it as an art centre that goes far beyond the local context. Thanks to its history, its capacities, its one-of-a-kind structure and beauty, as well as its status as a world destination, and not for holidaymakers alone, Dubrovnik simply requires this.

The Collection

Founded in 1945, the intention being that it should collect, keep, study, exhibit and publicise the fine arts material of the modern and contemporary period, the Museum of Modern Art, Dubrovnik, has to date managed to assemble a valuable collection of 2,449 works of art, via its purchases, donations and gifts.
In the modern art collection, covering works of art produced from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries to the end of World War II, the most represented are pieces by artists related in some way to the Dubrovnik area, whose works nevertheless went far beyond mere regional and even national importance. This is primarily relevant to the high quality and copious collection of works by Vlaho Bukovac ( 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 ) (288 works), the painter who first brought into Croatian art ideas concerning plein air painting, as well as the collection ofpictures (dominated by landscapes) of Mato Celestin Medović. Most in evidence of the Dubrovnik painters whose work was created more or less up to the end of World War II are Niko Miljan, Marko Murat and Marko Rašica, with an ample selection of works of Ignjat Job and the painters Gabro Rajčević and Ivan Ettore, both of whom died young, with their very particular meridional version of Expressionism. The collection of the Museum of Modern Art in Dubrovnik also possesses a large number of works by classics of Croatian modern painting such as Emanuel Vidović, Mirko Rački, Menci Clement Crnčić, Miroslav Kraljević, Vladimir Becić, Oskar Herman, Milivoj Uzelac, Vilko Gecan, Ljubo Babić, and Marino Tartaglia, as well as classics of modern sculpture like Ivan Meštrović, Frano Kršinić and Robert Frangeš-Mihanović.

In the contemporary art collection, which comprehends artworks created since the end of World War II, there are classic media such as sculpture, painting and printmaking, but in the last ten years or so a significant collection of photographs, videos and artistic installations has been built up.The presence of Dubrovnik artists is of particular note in the collection of modern and contemporary painting. This includes the capacious repertoire of Ivo Dulčić ( 1 / 2 / 3 ), Antun Masle and Đuro Pulitika, all of whose creative phases are represented, although with the greatest number of works from the 1950s and 1960s; painters who reached the peaks of their reputations, particularly locally, in the seventies and eighties (Branko Kovačević, Milovan Stanić, Josip Trostman and others) as well as works of younger painters whose works belong to the beginnings of this century and, provisionally speaking, to the art of post-modernism (Viktor Daldon, Ivan Skvrce). The collection of the Museum of Modern Art, Dubrovnik, presents the events of not only Dubrovnik art but also of a heterogeneous cross-section of the Croatian art scene in general. There are members of Exat 51, a group that in the fifties represented in Croatia the principles of geometrical abstraction, particularly works of Ivan Picelj, Vjenceslav Richter and Aleksandar Srnec; works by members of Gorgona (a group from the turn of the fifties and sixties), including those of Julije Knifer, Josip Vaništa, Marijan Jevšovar and Ivan Kožarić ( 1 / 2 ); members of the New Tendencies (a group from the sixties and seventies) are represented by works of Vojin Bakić and Miroslav Šutej. The almost complete suspension of figuration is represented by the oils on canvas of Oton Gliha and Frano Šimunović; the genesis of Abstract Expression by the oils on canvas of Edo Murtić; the tendency to Surrealism by the paintings of Miljenko Stančić; the tendencies of Art Informel by the pictures of Ljubo Ivančić (end of the fifties, early sixties). The second half of the 20th century sculptors shown are Ivan Kožarić, Branko Ružić, Dušan Džamonja, Ksenija Kantoci, Kosta Angeli Radovani, Vanja Radauš and others. As for artists who made their reputations on the Croatian scene in the 1970s and 1980s, the Museum possesses works of Igor Rončević, Željko Jerman, Duje Jurić, Goran Trbuljak and Braco Dimitrijević. The newly created photographs, videos and artistic installations section contains the remarkable Magnum photos of Mladen Tudor, the photographs of Ivan Kožarić, the war photographs of Damir Fabijanić, photographs of the Dubrovnik photographer Pavo Urban who was killed still in his youth in the Homeland War and works of Dubrovnik photographers of the younger generation (Mara Bratoš, for example). The collection of videos and installations contains works of post-conceptual artists who made their names in the nineties: Slaven Tolj, Alen Floričić, Boris Šincek, Pasko Burđelez and others. The collection of the Museum, as well as very clearly documenting the artistic life of Dubrovnik, possesses works that allow it to epitomise the heterogeneity and richness of artistic production in Croatia, in some cases with a very rich selection of works.Between 2006 and 2010, the Museum of Modern Art in Dubrovnik has obtained by purchase and donations the works of modern painters from the city such as Marko Rašica, Ivan Ettore and Đuro Pulitika (a donation of 76 pieces) and works of contemporary Croatian artists: of Mladen Tudor, Dragutin Trumbetaš, Slaven Tolj, Pavo Urban, Boris Šincek, Pasko Burđelez, Zlatan Dumanić, Alen Floričić, Goran Trbuljak, Viktor Daldon, Ivan Skvrce and Ivana Pegan-Baće.The Museum is also in the process of enhancing its collection with the works of international artists, such as the contemporary Belgian multimedia artist Jan Fabre, who in 2006 donated three works to the Museum of Modern Art, Dubrovnik.