Virgilije Nevjestić (Croatia) | Nocturne | Lithograph, 56x43

Sign.: LR signature  LL 57/70  LM Nocturne

Unframed

Virgilije Nevjestić (1935 - 2009) - Croatian painter and graphic artist. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1963 and from the special department of graphic arts in 1966. Two years later, he moved to Paris, where he remained for the rest of his life. Until 1970. Nevjestić established himself in the Parisian art world: he was awarded a silver medal at the Youth Biennale and the French National Library acquired his works. In 1971, the French State granted him a studio in Montparnasse and he was able to pay a down payment on a professional press, which he used throughout his career. In 1972, he began a year-long project, Le Journal du Vagabond (The Journal of Vagabond), in which he recorded his daily experience as an artist in Paris, using his poetry illustrated with copper engravings. A total of 364 copper engravings and an additional four colour plates depicting the seasons launched his career and won him critical acclaim. Although the trajectory of his career was more closely linked to France than to Croatia, he was awarded the prestigious Josip Račič Vjesnik Prize in 1974.

Nevjestić began working at the French Institute for the Restoration of Works of Art, and in 1987 he founded L'Academie Virgile, where he taught printmaking and graphic arts. He became known for his highly detailed surrealist inlays, fine prints, fantastical maps, and illustrations for his own literary art books and those of Charles Baudelaire, Mile Pesorda, Antun Branko Simic and Dragutin Tadijanovic. He has exhibited throughout Europe, the USA and Japan. Nevjestić is often credited with drawing attention to the atrocities suffered by Bosnians, Croats and Herzegovinians in the Croat-Bosniak war of the early 1990s through essays, written and radio interviews for publications such as Le Figaro and an exhibition at the University of Paris Library.