Virgilije Nevjestić (1935–2009) was a Croatian painter and printmaker who trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb and from 1968 lived in Paris, where he founded L’Académie Virgile in 1987. In 1969 his work was shown in “Yugoslavia: A Report” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. His art combines surrealist elements with figurative detail, turning a poetic nostalgia for childhood and homeland into sequences of dreamlike, symbolic scenes.
Virgilije Nevjestić (1935–2009, b. Kolo near Tomislavgrad, Bosnia and Herzegovina) was a Croatian painter and printmaker. He trained at the art school in Sarajevo and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, graduating in 1963 and completing a specialisation in printmaking in 1966. In 1968 he settled in Paris, where he lived for the rest of his life. In 1987 he founded L’Académie Virgile, where he taught printmaking. His work combines surrealist elements with figurative detail, drawing on a poetic, nostalgic projection of his childhood and homeland to create dreamlike scenes. His compositions are often arranged as a sequence of separate, symbolic scenes, while his later work turned towards tonal drawing with refined light and colour. He illustrated poetry by Antun Branko Šimić, Dragutin Tadijanović and Charles Baudelaire, among others, and published his own illustrated poetry collections. He exhibited widely, in cities including Zagreb, Sarajevo, Belgrade, Milan, Paris, London, Rome, Tokyo and New York, and in 1969 his work was included in the exhibition “Yugoslavia: A Report” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He died in L’Haÿ-les-Roses near Paris in 2009. The lithograph “Nocturne”, numbered 57/70 and offered by TUMO Gallery, reflects the dreamlike, nocturnal atmosphere of his graphic work.
