President Milanović Visits Exhibition “The Kviz Collection – A Little Treasury of Croatian Painting” at Klovićevi Dvori Gallery
The President of the Republic Zoran Milanović today visited the exhibition “The Kviz Collection – A Little Treasury of Croatian Painting” at the Klovićevi Dvori Gallery.
Accompanied by Antonio Picukarić, Director of the Klovićevi Dvori Gallery, Petra Vugrinec, curator of the exhibition, and the collection’s owners, Jelva and Boris Kviz, President Milanović explored one of the most respected collections of modern Croatian painting, previously largely unknown to the public.
The collection comprises 68 works, primarily outstanding pieces from the late 19th century to the first half of the 20th century. Among them are Josip Račić’s 1906/07 “Autoportret,” which is individually protected as a cultural heritage good, and Vlaho Bukovac’s 1898 “Pet ćutila,” also under the protection of the Republic of Croatia. The collection features multiple works by key Croatian modern artists, including Vlaho Bukovac, Bela Csikos Sesia, Ferdo Kovačević, Menci Clement Crnčić, Emanuel Vidović, Miroslav Kraljević and the Munich Four, Milivoj Uzelac and the Prague Four, as well as Ljubo Babić, Jerolim Miše, Miljenko Stančić, and others.
The collection’s owners, Boris Kviz, a distinguished university professor at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing at the University of Zagreb, and his wife, Jelva, began acquiring the paintings in the early 1970s. All works and their provenance are meticulously documented and catalogued. Paintings from the Kviz Collection have been regularly loaned for retrospective and other exhibitions. The decades-long collaboration between the Kviz family and the Klovićevi Dvori Gallery has culminated in the donation of the entire collection, representing one of the most valuable donations of art in Croatia in recent decades.
President Milanović was joined by his Special Adviser for Culture, Zdravko Zima, during his visit to the exhibition.
PHOTO: Office of the President of the Republic of Croatia / Marko Beljan