Zoran Music

(Gorizia/Görz 1909 - 2005 Venedig)

The Slovenian-Italian painter and graphic artist Zoran Music was born on 12 February 1909 in Bukovica near Gorizia in the former Austria-Hungary. He primarily dealt with the barren landscapes of Dalmatia and Italy and, in contrast, with urban scenes from Paris and Venice. In addition, there are portraits and everyday scenes of farmers and fishermen. Particularly noteworthy is the series "Nous ne sommes pas les derniers" (“We are not the Last”), in which he processed his impressions from the Dachau concentration camp.

In 1915, while his father was in active service on the Galician front, the family was evacuated to Styria, Austria. From 1920 to 1930 his father taught in Völkermarkt, where Zoran Music attended grammar school. After graduating from high school in Maribor, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb from 1930 to 1935. Music spent his holidays drawing in Croatia, but also made regular visits to Vienna. In 1935 he completed his studies and travelled to Madrid where he focused on the work of El Greco and Goya in the Prado. From 1941 to 1942 Music was in Gorizia again and was commissioned to paint frescos in various churches in the area. After his first successes in exhibitions he was arrested in 1944 by the Gestapo for alleged contacts with the resistance and was deported to the concentration camp Dachau. The concentration camp was liberated by the Americans in 1945 and Music returned to his family seriously ill. In this period, he made around 200 drawings, of which only 35 are preserved. Based on these drawings Music created the series “We are not the Last” in the 1970s. From 1946 he lived and worked in Venice, where he was often visited by Oskar Kokoschka. Important collectors like Alix de Rothschild and Mark Tobey acquired his work. In 1949 he married Ida Cadorin-Barbarigo. In the years 1950/51 Music received many awards including the Gran Premio della grafica from the Biennale in Venice. A contract with the Galerie de France in 1952 gave him the opportunity to live and work in Paris, although he kept his studio in Venice. His artworks became increasingly abstract. From 1956 to 1960 Music worked in Dalmatia and then in Cortina d’Ampezzo, near Bologna, on the Côte d’Azur and in the Dolomites. In the 1980s and 1990s Music lived both in Venice and Paris. His art has been honored in numerous international exhibitions, including major retrospectives at the Grand Palais in Paris in 1995, the Modern Gallery in Ljubljana in 2009, and the Leopold Museum in Vienna in 2018. In Slovenia, Music's life's work was awarded the Preseren Prize in 1991. Music died on 25 May 2005 in Venice.