Naslov
Ivo Kerdić: umjetnik i njegov model
(Ivo Kerdić, the Artist and the Model)

Autori
Mirnik, Ivan

Izvornik
Peristil : zbornik radova za povijest umjetnosti (0553-6707) 51 (2008); 71-88

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Radovi u časopisima, članak, znanstveni

Ključne riječi
medalje; plakete; Kerdić Ivo; Langdon William Chauncy
(medals; plaquettes; Kerdić Ivo; Langdon William Chauncy)

Sažetak
In 2005 Vjekoslava Kerdić, the surviving younger daughter of the Croatian medallist and sculptor Ivo Kerdić (Davor, 1881 – Zagreb, 1953) sent the remaining medals still in her possession, photographs and many documents dealing with her father and the Kerdić family to the Zagreb Archaeological Museum. Thanks to the generosity of V. Kerdić the medals became the property of the Museum, whereas the remaining material was sorted, studied, partly photocopied and then handed over to the Archives of the Zagreb Archdiocese. Among the photographs there were several portraits of persons who can also be seen on medals by the same author, which will be discussed here, some people remain anonymous. These photographs were chiefly taken in profile, right or left and were used by the medallist while he modelled the portraits. Among the few old negatives, kept in several cardboard boxes, there was a glass negative plate with the picture of the artist's Viennese wife Käthe (Ketty) in the background, holding their one-year old elder daughter Vida, with her head in profile. The medal, modelled in 1917, shows the child with sparse hair facing right, whereas the picture was taken in the opposite direction: perhaps the negative was copied in the other way. The Zagreb Glyptoteque preserves the unreduced plaster plaquette with the portrait of the noted Zagreb architect Dragutin Vajda (1881 – 1959), member of the Society of Engineers and Architects, made in 1928, whose picture can also be found among the photographs. The same year also saw the making of the portrait medal of William Chauncy Langdon (1871 – 1947), the author of the well-known two volume history « ; ; Everyday things in American Life, 1607-1776 ; 1776-1876» ; ; , which has had several editions, a great promotor of Kerdić and his medals in the world of art. From the correspondence between Langdon, who worked for for the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, Bell System (195 Broadway, New York), and acted as chairman of the Committee on Foreign Medals of the American Numismatic Society, and Kerdić, preserved at the Archives of Figural Art of the Croatian Academy of Science and Arts in Zagreb and the Archives of the Archdiocese of Zagreb, one can establish that the first contact took place in 1923 (November 13), and grew into a friendship, which lasted until the death of the former in 1947. Also, the early formal tone in their correspondence grew into a cordial one. Langdon published two articles on Kerdić in the Slavonic Review and in Arethuse. Kerdić and Langdon never met, in spite of the artist's wish to come to New York and work there for a while. As a permanent testimony of this friendship there is a struck medal of Langdon's made in 1928, and there are models for two versions of the obverse and one of the reverse, as well as the die and the punch for the obverse at the Glyptotheque of the Croatian Academy of Science and Arts in Zagreb. In 1938 Ivo Kerdić finished a portrait medal of a close friend of his, Ivo Fedor Mošinsky de Zagreb-grad (1874 – 1945), also from a photograph. After the Second World War, Kerdić was approached by Mihovil Abramić (Pula, 1884 – Split, 1962), director of the Archaeological Museum in Split, who also wanted a portrait medal of his, with the replica of the Kairos relief from Trogir on the reverse. The last portrait medal modelled by Kerdić was a portrait of his old friend, the sculptor Ivan Meštrović, having used both his memory and a photograph to help him in this.

Izvorni jezik
Hrvatski, engleski

Znanstvena područja
Arheologija

POVEZANOST RADA