Dušan Jevtović

Serbian naïve art painter (1925–2011)

Dušan Jevtović Душан Јевтовић
Dušan Jevtović
Born	Dušan Jevtović (1925-08-09)August 9, 1925 Gornja Tranava, Prokuplje Yugoslavia
Died	October 6, 2011(2011-10-06) (aged 86) Belgrade Serbia
Nationality	Serbian
Known for	Painter
Movement	Naive art
Website	[1]

Dušan Jevtović (Serbian Cyrillic: Душан Јевтовић); village Gornja Trnava nearby Prokuplje, August, 9th 1925 – Belgrade, October, 6th 2011), Serbian naive art painter. He is considered to be one of the foremost contributors to the naive art genre, with a worldwide reputation.

Biography

Dušan Jevtović was born in Gornja Tranava, a village near Prokuplje in 1925. He began painting in 1956. He died in Belgrade in 2011.^[1]

Artistic Style

National customs, church festivals, celebrations, natural disasters, misfortunes, human existence in general represented by interwoven friezes of people with exaggerated gestures, are all metaphors of collective consciousness, of total power of human multitude in good and evil. Horses, white, yellow, red rising on hind legs against the ruby-red sky and symbolizing life power, or a dragon representing the evil, all dwell in Jevtovic's rosy heaven like an eternal counterpoint: the fight between the real and imagined, good and bad… Dozens of portraits of human groups are connected by various incidents. The artist's sense of movement and crowd arrangement shows his innate feeling of composition. Gestures, clothes, and habits display features typical of the area and the people in ecstatic mood. The artist wishes to connect them with a ritual and therefore applies a pictorial structure resulting in perfect and imaginative observations. Thus, his paintings are raised from more description to the heights of distinctive painting formulae.^[2]

Exhibitions and awards

Dušan Jevtović participated in representative exhibitions in the country and abroad, such as Salons and Biennials of Naïve art in Jagodina, Munich (1968), Rome and Tokyo (1971), Paris, Belgrade (2003), Sofia (2007), Budapest (2008), and in significant international exhibitions: Lugano (1969), Naivi (1979, 1973, 1977). He was awarded numerous recognition for his work, among which the most important are the Award for Entire Artistic Work (1987) and Grand Prix at the Ninth and Twelfth Biennial (1999, 2005) of Museum of Naïve and Marginal Art, Jagodina.^[1]

Gallery

Village Patron Saint’s Day, 2009
acrylic on canvas, 95x130cm
MNMA^{[permanent dead link]}, Jagodina
Summer in my Village, 1986
oil on canvas, 73x92cm
MNMA^{[permanent dead link]}, Jagodina
Winter Weddings, 1986
oil on canvas, 92x73cm
MNMA^{[permanent dead link]}, Jagodina

References

^ ^a ^b М. Бошковић; М. Маширевић,Самоуки ликовни уметници у Србији, Торино, 1977
^ Н. Крстић, Наивна уметност Србије, САНУ, МНМУ,Јагодина, 2003

Literature

Oto Bihalji-Merin; Небојша Бато Томашевић, Енциклопедија наивне уметности света, Београд, 1984
М. Бошковић; М. Маширевић,Самоуки ликовни уметници у Србији, Торино, 1977
Н. Крстић, Наивна уметност Србије, САНУ, МНМУ, Јагодина, 2003
N. Krstić, Naïve and Marginal Art in Serbia, MNMU, Jagodina, 2007
N. Krstić, Život je slavlje, MNMU, Jagodina, 2012.