Omer Mujadžić and The Hanžeković Collection

A virtuosity that spent decades in silence – that is what we could call the art and destiny of Omer Mujadžić. The artist that received loud accolades when he returned from Paris with his refined neo-realism did not have a single solo exhibition in the city he lived and worked in for more than seventy years, from 1933 until his death. There is more than one reason for such fortune, including undoubtedly the artist’s persistence in the belief that “One should respect tradition and build a future on it,” in a figuration-unfriendly environment. Mujadžić himself most probably repelled fortuna critica and exposed himself to the “noise of the stifling environment and flurry” only on his way from home to the Academy of Fine Art's back entrance Zagreb, where he taught for forty-two years. “Total isolation gets my vote,” was his instruction for the preservation of artistic integrity. Other chapters of his life remained equally mysterious, including an interesting story from the history of Croatian private collections, whose protagonists are three generations of the Hanžeković family.