The exhibition “Works of Alexander Derok in the Art Collection of SANU (Srpska Akademija Nauka i Umetnosti – The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts)” will be opened from Monday, February 8, 2021 in the Salon of the National Museum in Zrenjanin. The exhibition features selected works of art that the academician Aleksandar Deroko donated to the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in 1984. In all,the exhibition comprises 49 of his artistic works. The author of the exhibition is Jelena Mežinski Milovanović, and the expert associate is Katarina Živanović. The exhibition is planned to be available to the public at the National Museum in Zrenjanin from February 8 to March 31, 2021. The curator at NMZ is Ivana Arađan, art historian.
After hosting the exhibition of sculptures by sculptor and academician Svetomir Arsić Basara, which was held at the NMZ Salon in 2019, the National Museum of Zrenjanin is pleased to continue cooperation with the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and presents to the public a select group of works by the artist, architect, pedagogue, and academic Alexander Deroko.
Aleksandar Deroko (Belgrade 1894 – Belgrade 1988) was a Serbian scientist, architect, artist, pedagogue, intellectual across a wide field of interests, warrior, athlete, and a renowned figure of Belgrade for much of his long, rich life. He became a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU) in 1955. In 1984, Deroko donated 129 of his works to the SANU Art Collection – in addition to 19 paintings, the endowment includes 110 drawings, sketches, and studies. Almost a decade after the artist’s death – in 1997, eleven more drawings by Aleksandar Deroko were donated to SANU by the artist’s colleague and associate, architect Slobodan Nenadović, so SANU today keeps a total of 140 Deroko’s works. Nearly four decades after his death, and for the first time in the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, the SANU Gallery presented to the public a selection of works by the academic Aleksandar Deroko from the SANU Art Collection. This retrospective is both a memorial of the artist and a tribute to the self-same donor, one of the artist-academics whose legacies has established the foundation of the SANU Art Collection. The artistic works of A. Deroko included in the exhibition spannumerous genres: self-portraits, self-portraits with his wife, portraits, anatomical studies – figures, still lifes, views, abstract compositions, genre scenes from the artist’s life, rural motifs, and motifs from field research and allegorical compositions. The most common techniques of the works are pencil, ink, tempera, and combined techniques.
Due to the corona virus pandemic, the grand opening of the exhibition will not be held. We ask all visitors to the Museum to wear masks, disinfect their hands at the entrance, keep a distance from others and, if necessary, in accordance with the recommendations, wait their turn to tour the exhibition if the maximum number of visitors is already present in the Salon. Thank you for your understanding.
