Ivan Meštrović was a Croatian-born American sculptor of the 20th century. He was recognized for his highly relief figures and sculptural compositions, on religious, mythological and political scenes, made from wood, bronze or marble.
Meštrovic also wrote many essays on art, short stories, poetry and memoirs reflecting political and public life issues of his time.
Background
Ivan Meštrović was born on August 15, 1883, in a village Vrpolje, Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia, Austria-Hungary (currently in Croatia). He was a son of Mate Meštrović, a peasant and sheep-breeder, and Marta Kurobasa. It was a poor catholic family of stonecutters. Meštrović’s parents raised him and his younger brother Petar in a religious atmosphere that later was reflected in his sculptures.
When Ivan was a child, the family came back to their native village Otavice where the boy spent his childhood. In the village, his father was the only person who could read.
Ivan revealed his inclinations for art, mostly sculpture when helped his father to look after the sheep. On pastures, he amused himself carving various figures from stone and wood.
Education
Ivan Meštrović had no formal education.
A stonecutter Pavle Blinić noticed Meštrović’s talent to the activity and took him as an apprentice in his workshop in Split. Blinić’s wife, Regina who worked as a teacher in a high-school gave the young man drawing lessons. In addition, Ivan Meštrović explored the rich architecture of the city that also helped to develop his talent.
In 1900, Meštrović was admitted by Ante Bezić to the evening apprenticeship course at the Intermediate secondary school. The same year, mine owner sponsored his trip to Vienna where he made the unsuccessful attempt to enter the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts.
Meštrović spent some time of the next year with the sculptor Otto König who prepared the young artist for the entrance exam. Ivan Meštrović successfully passed it the same year and entered the sculptor class of Edmund Hellmer and then of Hans Bitterlich.
While studying, Ivan Meštrović got acquainted with the sculptor Auguste Rodin.
Completing the course in 1904, Meštrović pursued his training in the class of architecture by Friedrich Ohmann. Meštrović graduated in 1906.
Ivan Meštrović started his professional career from the collaboration with Vienna Secession Group which he joined while studying in the city. In 1903 and 1905, he exhibited for the first time at its show. The same year, 1905, the young artist demonstrated his artworks at the anniversary exhibition of the Art Society in Zagreb where his sculpture ‘Mother and Child’ was purchased for the emperor of Austria. The first important commission, ‘The Well of Life’ was completed this time as well.
Meštrović’s popularity in Croatia grew quickly and soon he earned enough money to develop his international acclaim through various international shows. The 1906 International Art Exhibition in London was followed by the Venice Biennale a year later. In 1908 he came to Paris where he presented his sculptures at the Salon d'Automne receiving positive reviews both from critics and public.
Then, Meštrović spent some time in Split and Zagreb, and after moved to Rome. He had stayed in the city for four years exploring ancient Greek sculpture. In 1911, he participated at the International Exhibition presenting some pieces from his Kosovo Cycle, among which was the equestrian sculpture of Prince Marko. Three years later, he took part at the Venice Biennale for the second time.
At the outbreak of the First World War, he decided to return to Split via Venice but changed his plans beware of the persecution for his political criticism of the Austro-Hungarian authorities. So, he spent the war period travelling around Europe and exhibiting in Paris, Cannes and Switzerland. In 1915, he presented his artworks at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.
Ivan Meštrović managed to come back to his homeland named by the time Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes only after the end of the war. He and his wife settled down in Zagreb where in 1922 he obtained the educational post at the Academy of Fine Arts and a year later became its president. As a head of the Academy, he contributed to the construction of many donated chapels and churches, such as the Račić Family Memorial Chapel in Cavtat, and awarded many talented students with grants.
Meštrović spent the rest of the decade exhibiting around the United States. In 1924, he demonstrated his artworks at the Brooklyn Museum in New York City and three years later he made exhibition trips to Egypt and Palestine.
Thereafter, the sculptor came back to Split where he lived during 1930s working on the decoration and reconstruction of its historical buildings and monuments. In autumn of 1941, Meštrović moved to Zagreb. The same year, he was imprisoned by the Croatian revolutionary movement Ustashe as a potential emigrant. Meštrović was released in three months due to the help of the cardinal Aloysius Stepinac.
The sculptor represented Croatia at the Venice Biennale of 1942. After, he lived in Rome where supported himself teaching at the Pontifical Croatian College of Saint Jerome. One year later, he left the Italian capital and went to Switzerland.
In 1946, Ivan Meštrović accepted the job offer from Syracuse University and relocated to the United States. A year later, the public of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City had an opportunity to admire his art.
At the beginning of the 1950s, the sculptor tried himself as a contributor to the Croatian emigrant journal Hrvatska revija (Croatian Review). In the middle of the decade, he joined the postgraduate studies department of the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. He visited Croatia for the last time in 1959 to see his friend cardinal Stepinac.
The book of his memoirs was published in the Croatian Review a year before his death. The last works which Meštrović completed were clay sculptures in memory of his deceased children Marta and Tvrtko.
Ivan Meštrović criticized hard the political activity of communists. He was also a strong advocate of Yugoslavism and Yugoslav identity. On April 1915, he co-founded the Yugoslav Committee in Paris.
Membership
Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts
,
United States
1934
American Academy of Arts and Letters
,
United States
1960
Yugoslav Committee
,
France
April 30, 1915
Vienna Secession
,
Austria
Personality
Physical Characteristics:
Ivan Meštrović had a minor stroke in 1960 which had negative impact on his eyesight.
Quotes from others about the person
"[Meštrović] is the most renowned modern Croatian sculptor. His works combine various influences, and they are both monumental and poetic. He sculpted in stone, bronze and wood, covering a diverse range of themes – spreading to rligious, portraits and symbolic themes." Miljenko Jurkovic, professor at the University of Zagreb
Connections
Ivan Meštrović was married twice.
On April 27, 1907, he married the daughter of a Jewish merchant named Ruža Klein. They lived together till the beginning of the 1920s.
In 1922, the artist married Olga Kesterčanek who gave birth to their four children. Their names were Marta, Tvrtko, Marija and Mate. Two of them didn’t survive their adult age. Marta died at the age of twenty-four and Tvrtko left this world at the age of thirty-nine.
Mate Meštrović is a journalist, editor at Time magazine, university professor and active politician.
Ivan Meštrović’s grandson Stjepan Gabriel works as a sociologist.