Vlaho Bukovac

Bukovac began his career in France. He painted in a "sugary" realistic style, his fashionable paintings achieved great success at the Paris Salon. During his sojourn in France, he traveled to England and the Dalmatian coast, where he was born. His travels also included voyages to the Black Sea, South (Chile and Peru), and North America. He learnt English when living in America as a teenager and, from the mid-1880s to the First World War, regularly visited England, where many of his most popular pictures were sold by the London art dealers, Vicars Bros. They included his large religious piece, Suffer the Little Children to Come to Me, and three nude subjects, The White Slave, Potiphar’s Wife and Adam and Eve.

In Britain, he painted portraits of Vicars’s clients, including his best patrons Samson Fox of Harrogate and Richard LeDoux of Liverpool. Samson Fox had bought Suffer the Little Children to Come to Me, exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1888, which was later presented to St Robert's church in Harrogate.[6]

Vlaho Bukovac:
Hrvatski narodni preporod,
Curtain at HNK in Zagreb

Bukovac became a significant representative of fine arts in Zagreb, Croatia from 1893-97, bringing with him the spirit of French art. These new directives are most evident in his landscapes. He then began using a palette of lively and lighter colors using liberated strokes, soft rendering and the introduction of light on the painting canvas. In his time in Zagreb, he became a leader at many important cultural and artistic events. He helped initiate the construction of the Art Pavilion, and organized the first artistic exhibition in the Academy Palace in 1893. Due to conflict with Izidor Kršnjavi and his great sensitivity, he withdrew to his native Cavtat where he stayed from 1898 to 1902. Upon his return to Prague he was appointed associate professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in 1903.

His departure from Prague resulted in a complete change of personality for Bukovac. He felt satisfaction and enthusiasm in Zagreb that he had not felt in a while, and began to dedicate all of his energy to his new students, one of which was noted Croatian painter Mirko Rački. It was in this time he introduced pointillism to the Prague Academy, and earned his historical reputation as an excellent pedagogue. In Zagreb, he is probably best known as the painter of the theatre curtain in the Croatian National Theatre, "Croatian National Revival".