Menci Clement Crnčić

He attended elementary school in Vienna, followed by military high school in St. Pölten and Hranice in Moravia (1876-1882). Pulling out of a military career, he departed for Vienna to study painting (1882-1884), graduating at the Academy of Fine Art in Munich under professor Nikolaus Gysis (1889-1892). Replacing Nikola Mašić, he taught at the Royal National School of Crafts in Zagreb (1892-1893). Noticing his drawing talent, the chair of the Department of Religion and Education Iso Kršnjavi granted him a scholarship in 1894 to study printmaking at Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna with professor William Unger. From 1894 to 1897 he sojourned in Vienna and Lovran (in 1894 with professor Unger). During his training he received the Füger gold medal in 1896 for the best work (the etching Sunday Morning in Lovran) and the Vienna Academy Special Prize (1897). Nine of his prints ended up in the collection of Vienna’s Albertina. He exhibited for the first time at the international exhibition of the Society for Arts and Crafts in Zagreb in 1891 and at the Croatian National Art Exhibition in the Courtyard of Academy’s Palace in Zagreb (1894-1895). At the Second Exhibition of the Croatian Artists Association in Zagreb’s Art Pavilion in 1900 he had his first solo show and since 1911 he regularly exhibited at the Ulrich Salon. He took part in the exhibition of the Croatian Artists Association (Croatian Salon 1898, 1900, 1901) and abroad (Budapest 1896, Petrograd 1899/1900, Paris 1900), at exhibitions of local and foreign artists in Vienna and Opatija (1902), exhibitions of the Art Society (1902, 1903, 1905, 1906, 1909, 1922…) in Zagreb, at Manes (Prague 1903) and Lada exhibitions (Belgrade 1904, Sofia 1906, Zagreb 1908…), many exhibitions of prints and drawings (Vienna 1895, Zagreb 1912, 1914, L’viv 1927) and exhibitions of Yugoslav printmakers in Zurich and St. Gallen (1926).

In 1901 he permanently settled in Zagreb and went on painting tours across the country and Europe: Split and Dubrovnik (1901), Plitvice Lakes (1902 with F. Kovačević and T. Krizman), 1903 Hrvatsko primorje, Kvarner and Gorski kotar (with Čikoš and Krizman), Italy, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Germany and Austria (1905 with M. Šenoa), Italy (1907 with O. Iveković), Bosnia (1908 with G. Pongratz and E. Kulmer). In addition to paintings and prints, he also made posters, cartoons and set design. An associate of the humour magazine Satir (1901), he made illustrations for the Sarajevo-based magazine Nada (1895) and Semann’s Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst in Leipzig (1896/97). He also took part in illustrating the work Die österreichisch-ungarische Monarchie in Wort und Bild.

Since 1903 he managed a private school of painting with B. Csikos Sessia, which in 1907 became the Temporary High School of Arts and Crafts, and then the Academy of Fine Arts (1921), where he taught painting and print until his death. In 1919 he became a full member of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts. From 1920 to 1928 he was the managing director of the Strossmayer Gallery of Old Masters; during his term of office the gallery was renovated and a new permanent exhibition was made. With Ljubo Babić and Tomislav Krizman, in 1919 he founded the Collection of Prints and Drawings of the National and University Library. His retrospective exhibitions took place at the Art Pavilion in 1931 and again in 1990/1991, as well as in the Klovićevi dvori Gallery in 2016.

Crnčić’s artistic activity is considered the basis of the development of Croatian modern visual arts of the late 19 ^th and early 20 ^th century. As an exceptional painter of the landscapes of Istria, Hrvatsko primorje and Dalmatia, he is one of the pioneers of this theme in our country. Crnčić’s outstanding significance is also reflected in the development and popularisation of modern Croatian graphic arts; as the first trained printmaker in our region, he introduced the high standards of the printmaking profession, raising generations of graphic artists, including T. Krizman, Lj. Babić, B. Šenoa, I. Benković, M. Krušlin and M. D. Gjurić.