Art Colony Sićevo – Tradition that unites us / Novi Grad

An exhibition of paintings and sculptures from the Sićevo Art Colony – Tradition that unites us – has opened in the gallery of the JU “KOC” in Novi Grad, organized by the Novi Grad Cultural and Educational Center.
The Sićevo Art Colony is considered the oldest Serbian and Yugoslav art colony, as well as a kind of chronicle of artistic movements in Serbia in the 20th century. Founded 120 years ago in the village of Sićevo, at the initiative of the famous Serbian painter Nadežda Petrović, more than 400 painters from all over the former Yugoslavia and abroad have passed through the Sićevo Colony, and the audience in Novi Grad will have the opportunity to see the works of: Miodrag Mića Popović, Stojan Ćelić, Ivan Tabaković, Ivan Felker, Viljem Jakopin and other significant authors.

Writing about the value of the Sićevo Art Colony, Emilija Ćopić Bilić points out that the exhibition bears witness to complex movements in art of the second half of the 20th century.
“The exhibition of the Sićevo Art Colony – Tradition that unites us – through the selection of works provides insight into a part of the collection of the SLU Niš Gallery, valuable in artistic, historical and aesthetic terms, formed thanks to the Sićevo Art Colony up to the year 2000,” wrote Bilić.

The exhibition “Tradition that unites us” was opened by the mayor of the municipality of Novi Grad, Miroslav Drljača, emphasizing that the exhibited works represent classics that, in a certain way, shaped the development of painting in Serbia, but also in the wider Yugoslav space.

“The Sićevo colony is one of the oldest colonies in the former Yugoslavia, and these are works that can interest all citizens of Novi Grad,” said Drljača.
The director of the Novi Grad Cultural and Educational Center, Mirjana Drljača, also spoke in the program part of the exhibition, emphasizing that the exhibition is part of the Days of Serbia in the Republika Srpska project and that it was previously exhibited in the Prijedor “Sreten Stojanović” Gallery.

“17 paintings and eight sculptures from the collection of the Sićevo Art Colony are on display. The exhibition provides an anthological overview of Yugoslav painting in the second half of the 20th century,” she emphasized.
Art theorist Daria Vujasin pointed out the great historical, but also contemporary relevance of this oldest Serbian art colony.

“Tonight we have the opportunity to go back in time and see what modernity meant in Serbia in the second half of the 20th century and to see in some way what is similar from that period in today’s contemporary art.”

The exhibition of works by the Sićevo Art Colony – Tradition that unites us – is organized as part of the Days of Serbia event in the Republika Srpska, and will be on display in the gallery of the Cultural and Educational Center in Novi Grad from December 17 to January 29.