Vera Nikolić Podrinska

Biography

In 1917 the first solo exhibition of Vera Nikolić opened in Zagreb. She gave everything it earned to war orphans, and the habit ran through her whole life: she engaged in charity work up to helping the victims of the Skopje earthquake of 1963.

She was born on 8 June 1886 in Zagreb, into a baronial family. Her father, Baron Vladimir Nikolić, was a Croatian deputy ban (deputy to the ban, the head of the regional administration), and her mother came from the Scotti family. Her artistic education began in an old-fashioned way, one that had almost vanished by then: a girl from a wealthy family was not sent to school but had the best teachers brought to the house. From 1900 she was taught by Oton Iveković. Later came state-run classes: from 1910 to 1914 she studied at the school of art and applied arts in Zagreb. Her studies then continued abroad. She worked in Vienna, then in Paris with André Lhote and Leo Junek and, according to some accounts, at the Académie Julian. The years given differ: 1925, or alternatively 1926 to 1928. Her family’s means allowed her to travel a great deal and to copy old masters in well-known galleries. On the family estate at Prekrižje she also took up photography. After her father’s death in 1933 she ran the large farm herself, and diplomas from agricultural exhibitions of the late 1930s attest that she ran it skilfully.

In 1939 she built a villa in Novi Vinodolski. There, by some accounts, well-known artists stayed as guests until her death. As a patron she paid particular attention to young talents from aristocratic families.

Her painting, in its range, is fairly typical of an artist of her circle: portraits, nudes, still lifes, interiors, landscapes. She began in a realist manner and later moved to the language of Post-Impressionism and Post-Cubism. She also made drawings for newspapers and magazines, separately from her easel painting.

In 1944 the authorities of the Independent State of Croatia set up a camp for captured American airmen on her land on Pantovčak Street in Zagreb. According to some accounts, the prisoners were allowed to play tennis and listen to music; according to others, they also worked in her vineyard. After the war part of her property was nationalized; on those lands a villa, Vila Zagorje, the residence of Josip Broz Tito, was later built. She described a journey from Zagreb to Bangkok in a book, “Od Zagreba do Bangkoka” (“From Zagreb to Bangkok”), and illustrated it herself. The year of publication is given variously: 1955 or 1957.

In 1966 she travelled to the United States for a showing of her works. There she was greeted by several Americans, former prisoners from the Zagreb camp.

Vera Nikolić Podrinska died in Zagreb on 28 March 1972.