An exhibition of works by the great portraitist: Robert Auer

Until November 21st, the Klovićevi dvori gallery will be the venue for a retrospective exhibition of works by Robert Auer, the great Croatian portraitist and a contemporary of Vlaho Bukovac. This exhibition serves to uphold the continuing practice of presenting works by top-class Croatian painters.

After the exhibition of the great Croatian painter, Vlaho Bukovac, the Klovićevi dvori gallery will feature an exhibition of his contemporary: a top-class portraitist, Robert Auer (1873 – 1952), which will be ongoing until November 21st.

Schooled at the academy in Vienna and Munich at the time when the art nouveau wave swept across Europe and greatly influenced the European cultural centres, Robert Auer is often tied to this particular artistic style. He gained popularity as a portraitist of the upper city class, having painted more than 150 portraits, and just as many nudes and symbolic compositions. He was the only Croatian painter who presented his works at the 1896 art nouveau exhibition in Munich, and his works received special recognition at the presentation of Croatian art at the 1906 World Fair in Paris.

Although his artistic expression was later characterized as bourgeois, after the second world war, and his work was largely neglected, the artistic value of this prolific painter is most often recognized by collectors. This is why the majority of his works that are on display at this exhibition have been borrowed from private collections. Apart from paintings, sketches, and drawings, which visitors will have an opportunity to view, a separate segment of this exhibition features the memorabilia from the family heritage. Furthermore, a reconstruction of the painter’s atelier, with his original painting implements as well as personal photographs of the models he painted, is also on display.