On Thursday, July 14, at 7 PM, as a part of the program that commemorates the 100th anniversary of Vlaho Bukovac’s death, curator Helena Puhara held a lecture in House Bukovac Echoes of the Millennium Exhibition in Budapest in 1896 – Bukovac and the Zagreb Colorful School.
The Millennium Exhibition in Budapest was organized in 1896 on the occasion of celebrating one thousand years of the Kingdom of Hungary. Although it was primarily intended for the presentation of Hungarian achievements, the appearance of Croatian artists at that mega-event, thanks to Bukovac's efforts, was conceived as a political and cultural affirmation of Croatia. In Budapest, in four Croatian exhibition pavilions, Croats presented themselves for the first time. Among mentioned pavilions was also a pavilion for art and historical monuments, the construction of which was transferred to Zagreb after the end of the exhibition. The foreign press wrote about Croatian art and the artists who exhibited in the separate pavilion with surprise and superlatives. The highest honors went to Bukovac and Frangeš. Still, the entire artistic group was recorded as an ensemble of high artistic qualities, i.e. as the press of the time labeled them - Zagreb's colorful school led by Bukovac. It was a good opportunity to complete the already started work on shaping the Croatian national identity.
