Milan Mrkusich

Milan Mrkusich, ONZM (born 5 April 1925, Dargaville) is a New Zealand artist and designer. He is considered a pioneer of abstract painting in New Zealand and one of New Zealand's most important living artists. Retrospective exhibitions of his work were organised by the Auckland Art Gallery in 1972 and 1985, and at the Gus Fisher Gallery in 2009. A substantial monograph was published by Auckland University Press in 2009.

He was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) in 1997 and one of ten inaugural Icon Award recipients by the Arts Foundation of New Zealand in 2003.[1] His work is held in most significant public collections in New Zealand including Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Auckland Art Gallery, Christchurch Art Gallery, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, Dunedin Public Art Gallery and The University of Auckland.

Education

Milan Mrkusich was born in Dargaville to emigrant parents from Podgora, Dalmatia. The family moved to Auckland in 1927, and Milan attended St Joseph's Convent (Parnell), Marist Brothers School (Ponsonby), and Sacred Heart College.[2]

In 1942 he took an apprenticeship in Writing and Pictorial Arts at Neuline Studios and attended the Seddon Memorial Technical College (now Auckland University of Technology) commercial art course.[3]
Architecture and design

Influenced by the Bauhaus movement, it is probably no coincidence that Mrkusich's first solo exhibition was hels at The University of Auckland's School of Architecture in 1949.[4]

Formed in 1949, Brenner Associates comprised architects Stephen Jelicich, Desmond Mullen and Vladimir Cacala, working with Mrkusich and designer John Butterworth.[5] Aside from architectural work, Brenner offered integrated interior, exhibition, lighting and furniture design, for which Mrkusich contributed interior and furniture design, as well as designing and building his own (award-winning) home (1950).[6]
Developing abstraction

In the 1970s, with fellow pioneer of New Zealand abstraction, Gordon Walters, Mrkusich exhibited at the Petar/James Gallery, run from 1972-76 by outspoken art dealer brothers Petar and James Vuletic. Like American critic Clement Greenberg, Vuletic had strong views on modernism and championed a group of like-minded artists, he had purchased works by Mrkusich and Walters in 1968. Other artists in the Vuletic circle include Stephen Bambury, Richard Killeen, and Ian Scott.[7]
Further reading

Jim and Mary Barr, Contemporary New Zealand Painters (Martinborough: Alister Tayler, 1980)
Gordon H. Brown and Hamish Keith An Introduction to New Zealand Painting (Auckland: Collins, 1982)
Ronald Brownson (ed), Milan Mrkusich: A Decade Further On 1974-1983 (Auckland: Auckland Art Gallery, 1985) ISBN 086463126X
Michael Dunn and Petar Vuletic, Milan Mrkusich: Paintings 1946-1972 (Auckland: Auckland Art Gallery, 1972)
Michael Dunn, New Zealand Painting: A Concise History (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2003)
Alan Wright and Edward Hanfling, Mrkusich: The Art of Transformation (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2009) ISBN 9781869404376
Alan Wright, 'The Alchemy of the Painted Surface: The Early Work of Milan Mrkusich 1960-65' in Art New Zealand Number 82/Autumn 1997

External links

Works by Milan Mrkusich in the collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
Artworks by Milan Mrkusich in the collection of the Auckland Art Gallery
Peter Leach, 'Milan Mrkusich: The Architecture of the Painted Surface' in Art New Zealand, Number 19/Autumn 1981
Rodney Wilson, 'Formal Abstraction in Post-War New Zealand Painting' in Art New Zealand Number 2/October-November 1976
Gordon H. Brown, 'The Pursuit of Modernism in the 1940s and Early 1950s' in Art New Zealand Number 30/Autumn 1984
John Daly-Peoples, 'The Transformation of Milan Mrkusich' in The National Business Review, Tuesday, 24 March 2009
Andrew Clifford, 'Canon of abstract art shows plenty of firepower' in New Zealand Herald, Wednesday, 6 July 2005
Peter Simpson, 'Perceptive look at the abstract' in New Zealand Herald, Saturday, 4 April 2009
Architecture and design firm, Brenner Associates

References

Herrick, Linda (26 June 2003). "Belated recognition for 'icons' of arts". New Zealand Herald (APN Holdings NZ Ltd). Retrieved 27 March 2013.
Wright and Hanfling, Alan and Edward (2009). Mrkusich: The Art of Transformation. Auckland: Auckland University Press. p. 220. ISBN 9781869404376.
Wright and Hanfling, Alan and Edward (2009). Mrkusich: The Art of Transformation. Auckland: Auckland University Press. p. 220. ISBN 9781869404376.
Pound, Francis (1992). "Emerging Abstraction". New Zealand Home & Building: The 1950s Show (Auckland: AGM Publishing/Auckland Art Gallery) (Souvenir edition): 38. ISBN 0864631898.
Lloyd-Jenkins, Douglas (1992). "Modernism and the Auckland Design Community". New Zealand Home & Building: The 1950s Show (Auckland: AGM Publishing/Auckland Art Gallery) (Souvenir edition): 58. ISBN 0864631898.
Lloyd-Jenkins, Douglas (1992). "Modernism and the Auckland Design Community". New Zealand Home & Building: The 1950s Show (Auckland: AGM Publishing/Auckland Art Gallery) (Souvenir edition): 58. ISBN 0864631898.
Hanfling and Wright, Alan and Edward (2003). Vuletic and his Circle. Auckland: Gus Fisher Gallery. ISBN 0473095289.

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