engleski

The Reception of the Works of Ivan Meštrović in Great Britain. From Acclaim to Controversy

The sculptor Ivan Meštrović occupies an extraordinarily important position in the Croatian art history. His formative years as an artist were shaped and moulded at the Vienna Art Academy where he graduated a three-year course in sculpture and a two-year course in architecture. He had already established himself as an exceptional artist exhibiting with the Viennese Secession. But he was very important artistic figure also for the British cultural landscape. Ivan Meštrović was a prominent figure among the British public long before his exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The press covered extensively his successful exhibitions in Vienna, at the great 1911 Rome International Exhibition and at the 1914 Venetian Biennale. In his reviews Frank Rutter, an art critic and museologist, used to refer to Ivan Meštrović calling him a true “European celebrity”. It is an expression which adequately depicts the vertiginous rise to glory and public recognition of then relatively young artist. Nevertheless, it was precisely the exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum that launched Ivan Meštrović into the centre of the British social circles. This exhibition and numerous press reviews facilitated and accelerated contacts between the sculptor and the London wealthy clientele and diplomacy such as the Cunards, Errázurizs, Gandarillas, whose family members he portrayed. To own his portrait – or some other work of his – induced a certain prestige. Participation in artistic circles and at private parties gave Meštrović the opportunity to examine and scrutinise the reception and movements in the contemporary artistic scene, not limited exclusively to the visual artistic styles but comprising also new literary, musical and theatrical tendencies.

Ivan Meštrović, Modern Art, Sculpture, Great Britain

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