| Klema
Švarc - Požgaj 1896 - 1982
Education:
Provisional College of Arts and Crafts (Zagreb, 1916.-1918.)
Royal College of Arts and Crafts (Zagreb, 1918-1920)
Biography: The future best known woman caricaturist, she
enrolled at the art school as a young Zagreb lady, daughter
of the architect Albert Schwarz, who worked on the construction
of the Croatian National Theatre. She studied with good
masters and art teachers, Crncic and Csikos, who influenced
her academic career. Soon her professor became Ljubo Babic,
and she was fascinated by his cynical attitude to everything
that was sweet and pleasing, so Klema started drawing her
school colleagues and teachers with an "addition of
red hot chilli pepper". Already in her student days,
in 1919, she achieved great success and renown with the
exhibition of her caricatures on the bathing establishment
on the River Sava, on the occasion when Francek Gospodaric
snatched the hundredth poor swimmer from the whirlpools
of the river and saved him from a certain death by drowning.
Her professor Babic liked the exhibition so much that he
suggested having the next exhibition in the "Salon
Ullrich" gallery. After graduation, Klema married Mr
Blivajs with whom she had children , and later married the
renowned Croatian architect Zvonimir Požgaj (1906-1971).
Although the broad art public remember her primarily as
a brilliant caricaturist, this does not mean that – since
she was a well educated painter – her opus does not contain
excellent pencils and oil paintings with the motifs of still
life and landscape.
|
home 
