Oskar Herman
Encyclopedia
Oskar Herman was a Croatian Jewish painter. He was one of the group of Croatian artists known as the Munich Circle, who had a strong influence on modern art
in Croatia
.
where in 1904, like his compatriot Josip Račić
, he attended the school of the Slovene painter and teacher Anton Ažbe
. In 1905 he enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich
, where he studied until 1910 under teachers such as Hugo von Habermann. At that time Munich was a center of European art scene for Realism
, Post-Impressionism
, Symbolism
and Jugendstil.
Herman continued to live in Munich
until 1933, with short stays in Zagreb
, Berlin and Paris. At that point, due to the escalation of Nazism
, he returned to Zagreb. During his stay in Munich he regularly displayed his work, with some success, at solo shows as well as participating in exhibitions of Munich Secession Art.
In the war years, Herman joined partisan forces and was captured and confined the refugee camp (1942–44) of Ferramonti-Tarsia, in Calabria
, southern Italy
. After his release he joined the artists colony of Cozzano
.
In 1944 Herman returned to Croatia and the partisans. In 1945 he started work as a curator
at the Modern Gallery in Zagreb
, a position he held until his retirement in 1954. That year he prepared a retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Crafts, and in 1971 a major retrospective at the Art Pavilion. Herman was a reclusive artist, so his work was late in being accepted and understood.
Herman died 18 January 1974 in Zagreb
.
and his aesthetics of "pure visibility". He found inspiration in the work of such artists as Giorgione
, Tintoretto
, Palma Vecchio
, and Hans von Marées
.
Herman was solitary artist who pursued his own vision, largely unaffected by contemporary trends in modern art. By the 1920s he was known for being somewhat of a recluse. His use of symbolism
developed before the expressionism
movement became widespread. His paintings show ever stronger expressiveness, with his main motive to depict man and his inner world. Herman's early watercolours show strong, brilliant colours out of which his own particular expressionist colourism developed. From 1925, his work also reflected an increasing vision of future persecution and terror.
Herman's painting Dva stabla pod brijegom (Two Trees at the Foot of a Hill) was featured on a stamp in the series Croatian Modern Paintings issued 2008
Modern art
Modern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...
in Croatia
Art of Croatia
Croatian art describes the visual arts in Croatia from medieval times to the present. In Early Middle Ages, Croatia was an important centre for art and architecture in south eastern Europe. There were many Croatian artists during the Medieval period, and the arts flourished during the Renaissance...
.
Biography
Herman was born on March 17, 1886 in Zagreb to Croatian Jewish family. He initially attended business school in Zagreb, although his interest was in drawing and painting. He studied art at the painting school of K. Filipa in Zagreb. Then he moved to MunichMunich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
where in 1904, like his compatriot Josip Račić
Josip Račić
Josip Račić was a Croatian painter in the early 20th century. Although he died very young , and his work was mostly created when a student, he is one of the best known of the modern Croatian painters...
, he attended the school of the Slovene painter and teacher Anton Ažbe
Anton Ažbe
Anton Ažbe was a Slovene realist painter and teacher of painting.Ažbe, crippled since birth and orphaned at the age of 8, learned painting as an apprentice to Janez Wolf and at the Academies in Vienna and Munich. At the age of 30 Ažbe founded his own school of painting in Munich that became a...
. In 1905 he enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, where he studied until 1910 under teachers such as Hugo von Habermann. At that time Munich was a center of European art scene for Realism
Realism (visual arts)
Realism in the visual arts is a style that depicts the actuality of what the eyes can see. The term is used in different senses in art history; it may mean the same as illusionism, the representation of subjects with visual mimesis or verisimilitude, or may mean an emphasis on the actuality of...
, Post-Impressionism
Post-Impressionism
Post-Impressionism is the term coined by the British artist and art critic Roger Fry in 1910 to describe the development of French art since Manet. Fry used the term when he organized the 1910 exhibition Manet and Post-Impressionism...
, Symbolism
Symbolism (arts)
Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
and Jugendstil.
Herman continued to live in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
until 1933, with short stays in Zagreb
Zagreb
Zagreb is the capital and the largest city of the Republic of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb lies at an elevation of approximately above sea level. According to the last official census, Zagreb's city...
, Berlin and Paris. At that point, due to the escalation of Nazism
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
, he returned to Zagreb. During his stay in Munich he regularly displayed his work, with some success, at solo shows as well as participating in exhibitions of Munich Secession Art.
In the war years, Herman joined partisan forces and was captured and confined the refugee camp (1942–44) of Ferramonti-Tarsia, in Calabria
Calabria
Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....
, southern Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. After his release he joined the artists colony of Cozzano
Cozzano
Cozzano is a commune in the Corse-du-Sud department of France on the island of Corsica.-Population:-References:*...
.
In 1944 Herman returned to Croatia and the partisans. In 1945 he started work as a curator
Curator
A curator is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, a curator or keeper of a cultural heritage institution is a content specialist responsible for an institution's collections and involved with the interpretation of heritage material...
at the Modern Gallery in Zagreb
Modern Gallery, Zagreb
Modern Gallery is a museum in Zagreb, Croatia that holds the most important and comprehensive collection of paintings, sculptures and drawings by 19th and 20th century Croatian artists. The collection numbers around 10,000 works of art, housed since 1934 in the historic Vranyczany Palace in the...
, a position he held until his retirement in 1954. That year he prepared a retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Crafts, and in 1971 a major retrospective at the Art Pavilion. Herman was a reclusive artist, so his work was late in being accepted and understood.
Herman died 18 January 1974 in Zagreb
Zagreb
Zagreb is the capital and the largest city of the Republic of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb lies at an elevation of approximately above sea level. According to the last official census, Zagreb's city...
.
Legacy
As a member of the famous Munich Circle, Herman's early work had a strong influence on Croatian contemporary art from the first half of the twentieth century. As the longest lived member of the group, Oskar Herman had the most time to develop as an artist, yet he remains the least well-known and accepted within Croatia. Recent acclaimed retrospective exhibitions have shown previously unknown Herman drawings, most of them from the Munich period (1906–1933) and have led to a better appreciation of his work. While in Munich, Herman encountered the ideas of prominent art historian Julius Meier-GraefeJulius Meier-Graefe
Julius Meier-Graefe was a German art critic and novelist. His writings on Impressionism, Post-Impressionism as well as on art of earlier and more recent generations, with his most important contributions translated into French, Russian and English, are considered to have been instrumental for the...
and his aesthetics of "pure visibility". He found inspiration in the work of such artists as Giorgione
Giorgione
Giorgione was a Venetian painter of the High Renaissance in Venice, whose career was cut off by his death at a little over thirty. Giorgione is known for the elusive poetic quality of his work, though only about six surviving paintings are acknowledged for certain to be his work...
, Tintoretto
Tintoretto
Tintoretto , real name Jacopo Comin, was a Venetian painter and a notable exponent of the Renaissance school. For his phenomenal energy in painting he was termed Il Furioso...
, Palma Vecchio
Palma Vecchio
Palma Vecchio , born Jacopo Palma or known as Jacopo Negretti, was an Italian painter of the Venetian school born at Serina Alta near Bergamo...
, and Hans von Marées
Hans von Marées
Hans von Marées was a German painter. He mainly painted country scenes in a realistic style.Von Marées was born in Elberfeld, Germany. At age 16, he was sent to the Berlin Academy. In 1857, he moved to Munich....
.
Herman was solitary artist who pursued his own vision, largely unaffected by contemporary trends in modern art. By the 1920s he was known for being somewhat of a recluse. His use of symbolism
Symbolism
Symbolism is the applied use of symbols. It is a representation that carries a particular meaning. It is a device in literature where an object represents an idea.A symbol is an object, action, or idea that represents something other than itself....
developed before the expressionism
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
movement became widespread. His paintings show ever stronger expressiveness, with his main motive to depict man and his inner world. Herman's early watercolours show strong, brilliant colours out of which his own particular expressionist colourism developed. From 1925, his work also reflected an increasing vision of future persecution and terror.
Herman's painting Dva stabla pod brijegom (Two Trees at the Foot of a Hill) was featured on a stamp in the series Croatian Modern Paintings issued 2008
Solo shows
- 1963 Oskar Herman - Galerija Umjetnina Split, Split
- 1994 Oskar Herman - Gallery of Fine Arts / Galerija likovnih umjetnosti, Osijek, Osijek
- 2006 Oskar Herman - Paintings and drawings 1906-1974 - Museum of Modern Art Dubrovnik, Dubrovnik
- 2007 Oskar Herman: Drawings - Glyptotheque - Sculpture Museum, Zagreb
- 2010 Exhibition of Oskar Herman paintings opens in Zagreb June 23 - Dec 3 WHERE??? Exhibition includes 340 pieces from his earliest work made in Munich to his last painting in 1974.
Group shows
- 1973 Paintings of the Munich Circle - Umjetnicki paviljon / Art Pavilion Zagreb, Zagreb
- 2006 Croatian Collection - Museum of Contemporary Art Skopje, Skopje
- 2007 Iz fundusa galerije - Museum of Modern Art Dubrovnik, Dubrovnik
- 2008 From the holdings of the museum - Museum of Modern Art Dubrovnik, Dubrovnik
- 2009-10 Zagreb - Munich: Croatian painters and the Academy of Art in Munich - Art Pavilion in Zagreb
Public collections
- Museum of Modern Art DubrovnikDubrovnikDubrovnik is a Croatian city on the Adriatic Sea coast, positioned at the terminal end of the Isthmus of Dubrovnik. It is one of the most prominent tourist destinations on the Adriatic, a seaport and the centre of Dubrovnik-Neretva county. Its total population is 42,641...
, CroatiaCroatiaCroatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ... - Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, RijekaRijekaRijeka is the principal seaport and the third largest city in Croatia . It is located on Kvarner Bay, an inlet of the Adriatic Sea and has a population of 128,735 inhabitants...
, Croatia - Rovinj Heritage Museum , RovinjRovinjRovinj is a city in Croatia situated on the north Adriatic Sea with a population of 13,562 . It is located on the western coast of the Istrian peninsula and is a popular tourist resort and an active fishing port...
, Croatia - Art Gallery Split, Croatia
- Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, Croatia
- Museum of Contemporary Art Skopje, Skopje, Macedonia (F.Y.R.M.)