On the occasion of marking 2022 as the 100th anniversary of the death of Vlaho Bukovac, on Thursday, June 9, 2022, at 6 PM, curator Jelena Beželj held a thematic lecture titled Vlaho Bukovac in the memory of Cavtat inhabitants.
Curator Beželj acquainted the audience with Bukovac’s connections with Cavtat, and his nostalgia for his hometown, while special emphasis was put on archive documentation from the House Bukovac and newspaper articles in which inhabitants from Cavtat address the greatness of Vlaho Bukovac. After Bukovac’s death in 1922, a whole series of events took place in Cavtat, celebrating the character and work of Vlaho Bukovac. The people of Cavtat remembered him as a generous benefactor who wanted to “gild” Cavtat. The very arrival of Bukovac’s ashes in Cavtat via Dubrovnik was an exceptional public event that gathered many people. After his death, the people of Cavtat regularly held celebrations in memory of Vlaho Bukovac. The first bigger celebration was on his tenth anniversary of the death, the whole town was covered in black, and Mass was held in the church of St. Nicholas, which followed the procession and commemoration speeches by his grave. The final act of the celebration was the memorial plaque which was placed on his birth house. Apart from numerous speeches that were held during these celebrations, to maintain the charitable spirit of Vlaho Bukovac, many poor people were financially helped. The next bigger anniversary was the thirtieth anniversary of the death, held in a form of the Vlaho Bukovac Festival. More precisely, an exhibition of about 90 paintings by Vlaho Bukovac was held throughout several public spaces in Cavtat, i.e. House Bukovac, House of the port authority, Bogišić collection house, and St. Nicholas church’s Pinakothek. After that, the great celebration for the 100th anniversary of the birth of Vlaho Bukovac in 1955 took place in the spirit of yet another exhibition, but this time the emphasis was on drawings, sketches in oil, and watercolors. More precisely, 137 works from the House Bukovac were on display. It was one of the biggest exhibition dedicated to Vlaho Bukovac so far, but definitely, the first one that did not emphasize his oil on canvas paintings.
The fact that only one retrospective exhibition was held before 1955, in Prague, shows how important retrospective exhibitions in Cavtat were. Meanwhile, Zagreb held the first solo exhibition of Vlaho Bukovac in 1957 with only 40 exhibited works. However, Cavtat did not forget its son.
Jelena Beželj also mentioned recent acts in memory of Bukovac, including the erection of a monument to Vlaho Bukovac in Cavtat in 2019, as well as this year’s celebration of the 100th anniversary of the great artist’s death.
