Book launch: Meštrovićev znak u Zagrebu (Meštrović's Mark in Zagreb)
April 25 was a big day for our team member Barbara Vujanović! Her book 'Meštrovićev znak u Zagrebu' (loosely translated as Meštrović's mark in Zagreb) was presented at Atelier Meštrović in Zagreb.
Several prominent specialists in the field contributed to this elegant event: Sandra Grčić Budimir (the director of the Museum of Ivan Meštrović), Snješka Knežević, PhD and Dalibor Prančević, PhD (as the reviewers of the book), Mate Meštrović, PhD (historian) and the author Barbara Vujanović herself, of course.
In the book, Barbara presents ten public monuments and public sculptures made by Ivan Meštrović as well as two buildings which he planned and the three museums in which his works are now kept (Atelier Meštrović, the Glypthotheque of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts and the Modern Gallery) as well as three churches and a few other "lost" spaces relevant to Meštrović.
As Dalibor Prančević says in his review, this book is essentially a monographic stduy of all the works by Ivan Meštrović which are in the public sphere and are available to the public. Up to now, nobody has approached all the "marks" of an artist in public spaces (be they material or immaterial) with the goal of unifying them. The individual analysis of the history of certain monuments, the analysis of their reception and their fate is the result of devoted research and professional experience based on the opus of Ivan Meštrović. (...) the texts in the book are written in a manner that is fitting for the wider audience. The book and the texts in it are extremely informative and bring forth completely new insight about the works that one of the most frequently mentioned twentieth-century artists in Croatia has left behind in Zagreb. It will contribute to the development of the awareness of the role played by Ivan Meštrović in Zagreb and will point out the importance of certain places encrypted by his creativity.
Snješka Knežević adds the following: with this book, the author Barbara Vujanović confirmed her high level of knowledge of the works of Ivan Meštrović and the culture and social history of Zagreb during this period. She refers to archival sources, periodicals, daily newspapers and literature on Meštrović from his time (...) up to recent studies. (...) She is not content with simple narration but conveys her own interpretation (...) the text has all the characteristics of a scientific work (...) but at the same time, through the topic of Meštrović and Zagreb and the array of information and curiosities it offers, it will surely attract a wider audience.
We would like to congratulate our dear colleague on her success and invite you to go through the book if you ever have the chance (or even better, add it to your personal library). It is definitely worth it!
