On the occasion of marking 2022 as the 100th anniversary of the death of Vlaho Bukovac, on Thursday, November 3, the exhibition Memorial gift to my beloved Cavtat was opened in House Bukovac.
Director of the Museums and Galleries of Konavle, Antonia Rusković Radonić, addressed the visitors, recalling the year 1922, which was crucial for Cavtat in various ways: in that year Ivan Meštrović completed the Račić Mausoleum, the Cavtat Embroidery Association was founded, and unfortunately, Vlaho Bukovac died in Prague.
Out of respect for the image and work of this great artist, and out of respect for the family’s ambition for the Bukovac gallery to become a museum, the Museums and Galleries of Konavle decided to dedicate this whole year only to Bukovac. Hundred years since his early departure is a decent position in time to look at his work, as well as his artistic legacy.
Throughout the year, every Thursday Museums and Galleries of Konavle organized public events in the House Bukovac, where they presented known and less-known information about the life and work of Bukovac and his family. All the professional employees of the Museums, as well as numerous colleagues and collaborators from other institutions, shared their knowledge and prepared some of the topics that brought us together this anniversary year.
For the birthday of Vlaho Bukovac (July 4th), as a community, we returned one of his paintings home. Namely the Konavle weavers (made in 1920), a small oil painting depicting people in Konavle traditional costumes around the loom. Thanks to joint donations from the country and abroad, the House Bukovac is richer for another Bukovac’s work.
In this anniversary year, the Museums published and promoted the book, Bukovac on postcards by Niko Kapetanić, and soon the 3rd issue of Vlaho Bukovac's picture book, Growing Up: part 2, will be published, followed by the large 800-page monograph Vlaho Bukovac by Igor Zidić.
The author of the exhibition Memorial gift to my beloved Cavtat is senior curator Helena Puhara, who explained the significance of Vlaho Bukovac's activities in the public space of Cavtat as well as his relationship to his birthplace, to which he always lovingly returned. The central pieces of the exhibition are represented by the four evangelists transferred from the apse of the church of St. Nicholas in Cavtat, which can be seen up close for the first time. It was this close encounter with the Cavtat masterpieces of Vlaho Bukovac that caused the greatest enthusiasm at the exhibition.
The author of the exhibition, don Mato Karamatić, pastor of the church of St. Nicholas in Cavtat, who enabled the loan of these large Bukovac paintings to the House Bukovac, opened the exhibition in his original way. The exhibition will remain open until the end of March 2023.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalog in which, in addition to the author of the exhibition, other colleagues from the Museum and Galleries of Konavle also contributed: Marko Vodopija, who presented the social and political life of Cavtat during Bukovac's time, Maris Stanović, who looked at the depictions of Cavtat in Bukovac's oeuvre and his ethnographic contribution and Jelena Beželj, who presented Bukovac in the sacred art of Cavtat. Museums and Galleries of Konavle have recorded in their catalog what is not possible to reach in the exhibition, and have focused their attention on all the places where Bukovac can be found in Cavtat.
