The Meštrović Atelier in Zagreb (TICKETS)- Ivan Meštrović Museums
In the authentic ambiance of the artist’s home and studio, the works created in the first four decades of his creativity are exhibited. From the first student papers to his departure from Zagreb in 1942.
The Meštrović Atelier, an art museum with a permanent exhibition of works by Ivan Meštrović, is an adapted part of the complex that Ivan Meštrović purchased and renovated at the beginning of the 20th century when he returned to his homeland and settled in Zagreb after he had become a successful and world-renowned artist after studying in Vienna and staying in Paris, Rome, Cannes and London, together with his first wife, Ruža Meštrović, born Klein.
In the construction and decoration of the building Meštrović’s collaborators were architects Viktor Kovačić, Harold Bilinić and Drago Ibler, and builders Stjepan Uršić, Josip Žanko and Josip Aljinović who signed the drawings and detailed designs. Ivan Meštrović certainly had a major role in the design of the whole, given that he had his own wishes as the client and he had knowledge and tendency towards architecture. Finally, the character of the realized refers to the general features of his later architectural projects.
On this link you can take a virtual tour.
Ivan Meštrović (15 August 1883 – 16 January 1962) was a Croatian and Yugoslav sculptor, architect, and writer.
He was the most prominent modern Croatian sculptor and a leading artistic personality in contemporary Zagreb. He studied at Pavle Bilinić’s Stone Workshop in Split and at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, where he was formed under the influence of the Secession.
He traveled throughout Europe and studied the works of ancient and Renaissance masters, especially Michelangelo, and French sculptors Auguste Rodin, Antoine Bourdelle, and Aristide Maillol.
He was the initiator of the national-romantic group Medulić. He advocated the creation of art of national features inspired by heroic folk songs.
During the First World War, he lived in emigration. After the war, he returned to Croatia and began a long and fruitful period of sculpture and pedagogical work. In 1942 he emigrated to Italy, in 1943 to Switzerland and in 1947 to the United States. He was a professor of sculpture at Syracuse University and from 1955 at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana.
With his Deed of Donation to the Croatian People of 1952, he donated numerous masterpieces, impressive architecture, and refined spaces managed by the Ivan Meštrović Museums.
The constituents of the Museums are located in four locations:
- his home and studio in Zagreb – The Meštrović Atelier
- the family villa – The Meštrović Gallery in Split
- renovated Renaissance castello – The Meštrović’s Crikvine – Kaštilac in Split,
- and in Otavice – The Church of the Most Holy Redeemer, whence his family originated.
In these spaces, visitors have the opportunity to enjoy hundreds of his works.
Location
Zagreb
Zagreb is the capital and largest city of Croatia. It is situated on the slopes of Medvednica mountain, in the Carpathian Basin, and on the banks of the Sava river. Zagreb has a rich and diverse history, culture, and architecture that reflect its long and turbulent past.
ExploreModernism
Yugoslav architecture emerged in the first decades of the 20th century before the establishment of the state; during this period several South Slavic creatives, enthused by the possibility of statehood, organized a series of art exhibitions in Serbia in the name of a shared Slavic identity. Following governmental centralization after the 1918 creation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, this initial bottom-up enthusiasm began to fade. Yugoslav architecture became more and more dictated by an increasingly concentrated national authority that sought to establish a unified state identity. Beginning in the 1920s, Yugoslav architects began to advocate for architectural modernism, viewing the style as the logical extension of progressive national narratives.
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