Mara Puškarić-Petras
Mara Puškarić-Petras (born April 6, 1903 in Novigrad Podravski (today Koprivnica-Križevci County , Croatia ), † March 4, 1998 ibid) was a Yugoslav or Croatian painter of naive art .
biography
Her father, Franjo Petras, was a farm worker with little land of his own, her mother Bara, née Dijaković, a housewife. Mara attended elementary school for four years. As the eldest of six children, she was brought up for all farm work at a very early age.
In 1922 she married Matu Puškarić. From this marriage comes a daughter named Barica. In 1926 her husband died of pneumonia. She came to painting by chance in 1955 when she was helping her granddaughter Jesenka with a homework. In 1963, the painter Ivan Generalić discovered her paintings and encouraged them to keep going. Then she painted the pictures Boy with Dog , Children Picking Flowers , and Spring . Her painting style was naive painting.
In 1978 an exhibition took place in the Hlebine Gallery in Hlebine , which is considered the center of Croatian naive art.
Works (selection)
- Fischer , 1978
- Peter Infeld portrait , 1982
- In the yard , 1986
- At the brook , 1988
- Meeting in front of the Novigrad Tower , 1998
About the works: For her pictures she mostly used brushes made of cow hair to apply wall paint mixed with varnish onto chipboard.
“In individual scenes of her pictures the living experiences and the urge for poetic representations pulsate. If it were not so, the works would only be sentimental reconstructions without very marked poetic sentiments. Mara does not belong to the "Hlebine Circle" . First and foremost because she started painting very late, and also because her technique and subjects are completely different from other painters in this field. Mara Puškarić-Petras creates a new reality by painting compositions that reflect the reality of her current rural life as well as that of her childhood and youth as well as details from her dreams. This reality is very poetic, created from the accumulated experiences and dreams, never ugly or traumatic. ”(Marijan Špoljar)
Exhibitions (selection)
- 1970 Galerija Lotršć , Zagreb
- 1974 Galerija izvorne umjetnosti , Zlatar
- 1978 Orober Gallery, Duisburg
- 1984 Galerija Podravka, Koprivnica
- 1998 Galerija Durdevac, Durdevac
literature
- Mara Puškarić, Marijan Špoljar: retrospekcija 1963-1978 .: Galerija Hlebine, 1978
- Ivan Picelj, Mara Puškarić-Petras: Galerija primitivne umjetnosti, Zagreb 1979
- Mara Puskaric-Petras: retrospective: catalog, Verlag Galerija Durdevac, 1998
- Oto Bihalji-Merin : World encyclopedia of naive art: a hundred years of naive art, Verlag F. Muller, 1984, ISBN 978-0-58495-062-5
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Puškarić-Petras, Mara |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Yugoslav and Croatian painter of naive art |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 6, 1903 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Novigrad Podravski, today Koprivnica-Križevci County , Croatia |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 4, 1998 |
| Place of death | Novigrad Podravski, today Koprivnica-Križevci County , Croatia |