Mirko Virius

Mirko Virius (born October 28, 1889 in Delekovec , Austria-Hungary , † 1943 in Zemun , Yugoslavia ) was a Yugoslav painter of naive art .

biography

Virius was born in the village of Đelekovec near Koprivnica , where he attended primary school for four years. During the First World War he fought as an Austro-Hungarian soldier in Galicia . He was taken prisoner by Russia and worked as a forced laborer in Kiev , Kharkov and in Jekaterinoslawer (steel mill). In the spring of 1918 he returned from Russia and stayed in Zagreb until the war ended. He became a member of the progressive rural movement led by the Croatian Peasant Party .

In 1936 the author Mihovil Pavlek Miškina presented it to the Hlebin painters Ivan Generalić and Franjo Mraz . They became the first generation of the Croatian version of Naive Art, the " School of Naive Art of Hlebine ".

During the Second World War , Virius was imprisoned for his political activities in Zemun (at that time in the so-called Independent State of Croatia , now the municipality of Belgrade ), where he died. His fate was recorded by Generalić, who created the picture Death of my friend Virius , one of his most famous works.

Works (selection)

• Harvest , 1938
• Returning from the Rain , 1939

Web links

• Information about Mirko Virius on the website of the Mirko Virius Gallery: English , Croatian
• Discussion of the picture of Ivan Generalić's death of my friend Virius