Zoran Music was born in 1909 in Gorizia in Dalmatia, formerly of the Austrian-Hungarian empire, present day part of Italy and Slovenia. At the beginning of the 1930’s he studies in Maribor, then the school of Fine Arts in Zagreb. His teacher introduces him to the works of George Grosz and Otto Dix. He takes several trips to Italy, Spain and Paris. Between 1935 and 1936, he visits the Prado in Madrid; Music reproduces works of Goya, El Greco and Valasques.
Between 1936 and 1941 the artist stays in Curzola in Dalmatia, where he studies icons and frescoes of popular inspiration. His first solo exhibit is in 1938. Music visits Austria and Poland, then settles in Venice in 1942.
Accused of belonging to the Resistance, he is arrested in Venice and deported to Dachau where he remained from 1943-1945. There, risking his life, he created hundreds of drawings of what he saw. This period of captivity and suffering will determine his future works.
Returning to Venice in 1945, sick, he resume his motifs of before the war, canvases almost abstract, inspired by landscapes and scenes of his native countryside in a range of brown, ochre and orange and commences a series of self-portraits. After his stay in Venice and Switzerland he settles in Paris in 1952, while still keeping his studio in Venice. To follow are his studies of “Dalmatian Land” in 1958, “Plant Motifs” in 1972, “Rocky Landscapes” in 1976, “Venetian Landscapes” in 1980, and “Cathedral Interiors” in 1984. If the artist is in quest of silence and serenity, he can not resist the haunting memory of deportation.
Between 1970 and 1975, Zoran Music will go back to the camp where he was stayed. He engraves and paints an untitled series “We are not the Last”. There is a paradox between beauty, the extreme sensibility of his technique and the unbearable that the artist represents.
In 1972, the Museum of Modern Art in Paris devotes the first large scale retrospective of Zoran Music. In 1995, he is part of the French selection for the centenarian of the Venice Biennial. The biennial where the artist first exhibited in 1948. He divided his time thus between Paris and Venise.
Zoran Music, at the age of 96, passed away in 2005. Similar to Schiele, Kokoschka but also Goya, Zoran Music is the heir to the works of sorrowful and suffering bodies. He passes on his testimony equipped with a whole palette of artistic instruments
Zoran Music, at the age of 96, passed away in 2005. Similar to Schiele,