Zlatko
Prica - biography
Zlatko Prica was born in the Hungarian town of Pecs in 1916.
Pecs is a town distinguished by culture, and its history
also involves the lives, or part thereof, of many Croatian
artists and known personalities: Ivan Česmički, who became
the bishop of Pecs at the age of 26 and one of the great
Humanist men of letters; Matija Petar Katančić, Croatian
writer, historian and archeologist; August Šenoa, who attended
grammar school there; and Miroslav Krleža, who attended
the local cadet school.
In the same year Arp and Tzara founded the Dada movement,
and the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich, the Dadaist headquarters
of sorts, had just opened its doors. The Austro-Hungarian
emperor Francis Joseph also died in the same year, and Einstein,
after his scientific studies of light, developed the general
theory of relativity. Of course, Prica's growth started
in Zagreb, where he came as a child. Very early on he showed
interest in his vocation, and even before his studies at
the Zagreb Academy of Fine Arts, and as a student, he drew
inspiration and knowledge from the holdings of the Modern
Art Gallery in Zagreb, more precisely from the layout arranged
by Ljubo Babić, who was later to be his professor along
with others such as Mujadžić and Krsto Hegedušić.
He enrolled in the academy in 1937 and graduated in 1940.
He staged his first one-man show only a year after graduation,
in 1941, at the Art Pavilion in Zagreb. At this, his very
first exhibition he was honoured by the visit of Prof. Artur
Schneider, who purchased the first paintings of the young
artist for the Graphic Art Collection of the National and
University Library.
In the same year he was arrested and interned in the Danica
concentration camp near Koprivnica, where he documented
with drawings the drama of concentration camp life. In 1943
he joined the partisans. Together with the painter Edo Murtić
he illustrated the poem The Pit by Ivan Goran Kovačić.
The fifties were a period of several travels important for
the life and work of Prica the painter (Stockholm, India,
Brazil, London). He exhibited his work in New Delhi.
In Zagreb he founded the Grupa 58 and Grupa Mart art groups.
In the late sixties he was one of the founders of the Forum
Art Gallery in Zagreb.
Zlatko Prica was a full member of the Croatian Academy of
Sciences and Arts. For his creative work and cultural activity
he has been awarded the highest state prizes and awards,
such as the Vladimir Nazor Life Achievement Award and others.
He has taken part in many exhibitions in Croatia and abroad.
His work is also exhibited in many museums in Croatia and
other countries, among which particular mention should be
made of the Museo de Arte Moderna, Sao Paulo, and the Tate
Gallery in London.
Two monographs bave been published about Zlatko Prica: a
representative one by the Italian publisher Luigi
de Tullio, Milan, and another written by Ivo Šimat Banov.
In his extensive creative work (painting, drawing, graphic
art, mosaic, fresco, ceramics, etc.) Prica has used
almost every art technique (oil, tempera, pastel, watercolour,
India ink, gouache, charcoal).
Zlatko Prica died in Zagreb 07.03.2003.
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