MILORAD BATA MIHAILOVIĆ – THE FIRST PARIS DECADE

The Gallery of Contemporary Fine Arts Niš invites you to the grand opening of the exhibition of works by painter and academician Milorad Bata Mihailović (1923-2011) on Thursday, May 30 at 8 p.m. – Pavilion in Tvrđava. The exhibition entitled The First Paris Decade of Milorad Bata Mihailović, authored by Sofija Z. Milenkovic, is organized by the SLU Gallery in cooperation with the Rome Gallery and the Milorad Bata Mihailović Foundation, on the occasion of the great jubilee, the centenary of the birth of the prominent artist.

The exhibition will feature some of the most significant works of Mihailović’s first Paris decade, including newly discovered works, which will be presented to the domestic public for the first time in Niš.

Milorad Bata Mihailović was born in Pančevo in 1923. He began his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade in 1946, but after a stay in Zadar and work within an informal group of students known as the Zadar Group, he left them two years later and continued working independently. In the very early period, Mihailović’s paintings were dominated by figures, most often through the genre of portraits, self-portraits and group portraits, as well as urban landscapes, among which Belgrade vedutes stand out. Later, while living on the coast, after leaving the Academy, under various influences, the artist developed his own artistic expression, adopting a two-dimensionality and modernist approach to painting.

From 1951 he was a member and founder of the group Elenaestorica. In the same year, he held his first solo exhibition in Belgrade at the ULUS Gallery, which was met with approval from art critics, with the observation that Mihailović, although obviously talented, had not yet found his authentic artistic expression.

With his wife, the painter Ljubica Jovanović, he went to Paris in 1952, where, with occasional returns to Belgrade, he spent most of his life.

Having entered a new, developed art scene, in the very center of European art events, the artist encountered a variety of currents of abstract painting that were unknown to him until then. Painting initially moderately geometric abstract forms, Mihailović’s expressive painterly temperament in Paris was more suited to a freer lyrical expression. He organized his first solo exhibitions as early as 1953 at the Marseille Gallery and the Paul Morihien Bookstore, and his notable performances led him to meet and collaborate with the renowned gallerist Rudi Augustincic and the Rive Gauche Gallery, where he first exhibited with the Polish artist Marjan in 1957, and then in 1959 with the Dutch painter Bram Bogart. Crucial to Mihailović’s positioning on the local art scene was his collaboration with Žan Polak, owner of the prestigious Ariel Gallery, where Mihailović has been exhibiting solo since 1960.

He visited New York on several occasions from 1962 until his final return to the Yugoslav art scene in 1965. The first retrospective exhibition in Belgrade was organized in 1981 at the Cvijeta Zuzorić Art Pavilion.

Milorad Bata Mihailović was a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. His works are represented in the collections of renowned museums and institutions, private collections, and social institutions in the country and abroad.

The public in Niš will have the opportunity to visit the exhibition at the Tvrđava Pavilion until June 30.