Ivan Generalic

Croatian painter. A farmer by occupation, his artistic talent was discovered in 1930 by Krsto Hegedusic. He became the most celebrated Yugoslav naive painter and the central figure of a group of naive painters known as the HLEBINE SCHOOL. In the 1930s the simple and expressive folk style and the clear colours in which he depicted peasant scenes with traditional customs, merry festivals, tragic deaths or arduous peasant work came close to the socially critical aesthetic of the committed artists in the group Zemlja. Yet he did not develop this expression of childlike simplicity by drawing on its primary force but by studying painting, focusing particularly on problems of perspective and space and on colour.

Josip Generalic

The Hlebine Jadwiga

Born in village of Hlebine, Republic of Croatia, on February 19, 1936.First oil paintings on canvas date from 1950. His first public appearance took place in 1954 in the town of Krizevci near Koprivnica, where he graduated at the Teachers’ Training College.In 1959 he displayed his artworks for the first time on a one-man exhibition in City’s museum in Koprivnica.

During his life, Josip Generalic has displayed his artworks on more than 1.000 collective exhibitions and 200 one-man exhibitions around the world. He was regularly present in all representative exhibitions of the Croatian and world’s naive art. The famous artist has been awarded by many international juries.

Generalic did a few scene paintings for Zagreb theatres; he ilustrated childrens’ books and made about thirty tapestries; one of them entitled the “Big Grape Harvest” is permanently displayed in the Museum of Modern Art in Soitama, Japan. Josip’s oil on glass and canvas paintings, his serigraphies and copper-plate etchings can be found in many galeries and museums. For 15 years, he’s been working intensively on copper etchings, using his own press. Generalic has been acclaimed by the critics as the top artist in the field of paintings and graphics and one of the gratest representatives of the world famous “Hlebine school”. Josip Generalic’s works of art are classified into four phases: the Hlebine verism, flower phase, portraits of distinguished persons and black phase.Josip Generalic died in Koprivnica on 22nd Dec 2004 and has been buried in Hlebine.