Naslov
Ante Topić Mimara and His Art Collection in the Years of Disfavour (the 1950s and 1960s)

Autori
Ferenčak, Ivan

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, sažetak, znanstveni

Izvornik
International Conference Art and the State in Modern Central Europe (18th – 21st Century). Programme and Book of Abstracts / Alviž, Josipa ; Damjanović, Dragan ; Magaš Bilandžić, Lovorka ; Miklošević, Željka ; Nestić, Jasmina ; Počanić, Patricia ; Walton, Jeremy F. - Zagreb : Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb ; FF Press, 2021, 28-28

ISBN
978-953-175-914-4

Skup
International Conference Art and State in Modern Central Europe (18th – 21st Century)

Mjesto i datum
Zagreb, Hrvatska, 30.06.2021. - 03.07.2021

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
Ante Topić Mimara ; art collection

Sažetak
During his life, Croatian collector Ante Topić Mimara (1898–1987) assembled a vast art collection spanning from artefacts of early civilizations to artworks from the 20th century. The core of the collection was formed on the art market of the Third Reich. By the end of 1948, Topić had transported artworks from his own collection to Yugoslavia. In the course of the next few years, his involvement in transferring artworks from Germany to Yugoslavia grew stronger and broader. Until Topić’s abrupt dismissal by Yugoslavia in 1950, these transfers occurred in close collaboration with highly ranked Yugoslav officials. During the 1950s and 1960s Topić and (part of) his collection parted ways. While artworks that entered Yugoslavia through his engagement were used to furnish state residences, Topić himself was considered persona non grata by the state. He spent more than a decade wandering the world, while continuing to collect artwork. Only after his official donation to the Strossmayer Gallery in the late 1960s and early 1970s did Topić regain the status of a distinguished art collector and philanthropist within Yugoslavia. This prepared ground for his next, even larger donation, upon which the Mimara Museum in Zagreb was established. Due to his mysterious biography, which is known primarily through eyewitness accounts and characterized by a lack of sources that would confirm his own unreliable statements regarding his life and provenance of his collection, numerous questions about Topić’s activity in the field of art collection remain unanswered. This paper aims to offer insight into Topić Mimara’s life between his activities in the Yugoslav state service around the year 1950 and the late 1960s, when his donation to the Strossmayer gallery took place. In order to consolidate his general biography, several episodes from that period will be clarified on the basis of yet unpublished archival records. This paper’s other objective is to trace the locations of the artworks Topić brought to Yugoslavia, which could eventually highlight his connections to the Yugoslav political establishment.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Povijest umjetnosti

Napomena
This work has been fully supported by the Croatian Science Foundation under the project IP-2020-02-1356 Provenance Research on Artwork in Zagreb
Collections (ZagArtColl_ProResearch).

POVEZANOST RADA