Ferdinand Kulmer

Ferdinand Kulmer (29 January 1925 – 11 November 1998) was a Croatian abstract painter and teacher. He studied at the Budapest Academy of Fine Arts, the Zagreb Academy of Fine Arts, and took special classes with Đuro Tiljak. Kulmer worked in the studio of Krsto Hegedušić, and for many years was a professor at the Zagreb Academy of Fine Arts. Kulmer's paintings tend towards abstract or semi-abstract scenes, with his early compositions based on still life or interiors featuring calligraphic brushwork. He developed a more heavily textured style, turning later to a looser, more gestural style with mythical themes that includes dancing calligraphic shapes. He designed costumes for two films by Vatroslav Mimica and Veljko Bulajic. Member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts. In 1990, Kulmer received the Vladimir Nazor Award for lifetime achievement in the visual arts.

Biography Ferdinand Kulmer was born 29 January 1925 in Cap Martin in the south of France, where his parents were spending the winter. The Kulmer family was aristocratic, old Croatian nobility of Austrian descent that had been prominent in the political circles of Zagreb during the rule of Austria-Hungary, and included the well-known 19th century lawyer and politician Baron Franjo Kulmer. Ferdinand's father was Count Alexander Kulmer, master of Cernik (near Nova Gradiška), and his mother was the Austrian noblewoman Countess Edeltrud Irmengild Hildegart Bopp von Oberstadt (b. 1892). Young Ferdinand spent a comfortable childhood on a number of family estates and residences, schooled by private tutor. From 1936 he attended the Jesuit boarding school of Kalksburg in Vienna. When Kulmer was 13, he travelled extensively with his father around the Mediterranean, and the following year to the United States (New York, Chicago, Detroit, Washington). In 1942, Kulmer enrolled in the Budapest Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied under the Hungarian painter Rezso Zsombolya-Burghardt. It was an intense time, with the bombing of Pest by the Allied forces, and the family home reduced to ruins. By January 1945, Russian troops were entering Budapest, and amongst the general chaos, hunger…Citește mai mult

Legacy Kulmer's earliest work has unfortunately not survived, so an analysis of his early development is not possible. During the 1950s, Kulmer was painting delicate, semi-abstract compositions based on still lifes or interiors, that featured stylised calligraphic elements. Following his visit to Paris in 1955, his paintings started to show the influence of Fauvism, particularly Henri Matisse and Raoul Dufy. By the end of the 1950s and into the early 1960s Kulmer developed a heavily textured style, producing completely abstract works with no recognizable forms. From this period comes the "Brown painting" that was purchased by the Tate Gallery in London. Kulmer's work has been described as "eclectic", and he was certainly one of the artists that continued to evolve in new directions as time went on. The second half of the 1960s saw calligraphy back in his work, turning into the colourful zigzags that were such a strong feature of his creations in the 1970s. Afterwards he turned to a looser, more gestural style, with works that included dancing calligraphic shapes in black and white or bright colours formed by controlled pouring. By the 1980s, Kulmer had introduced mythological and heraldic motifs to his images, extremely simplified and stylized.…Citește mai mult

Exhibitions During his lifetime, Ferdinand Kulmer exhibited extensively in Europe (Paris, London, Vienna, The Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Hungary), and in 1969 he became member of gallery "Forum" in Zagreb.

1990 Retrospektiva, Klovićev Courtyard, Zagreb 1984 Ferdinand Kulmer Pictures 1983, Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb 1976 Ferdinand Kulmer Pictures 1953-1976 - Modern Gallery, Zagreb 1971 Ferdinand Kulmer, Gallery of Fine Arts, Split 1961 Ferdinand Kulmer exhibition Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb

Group exhibitions 2008 From the holdings of the museum, Museum of Modern Art, Dubrovnik 2006 Croatian Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art, Skopje, Macedonia 2004 Image, Gesture and Matter - MMSU - Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Rijeka 1987 19° Bienal de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

Public collections Ferdinand Kulmer's work can be found in the following public collections:

Sources Zidić, Igor (2006). In Mercuri's Sandals (a view of Kulmer) (PDF) (in Croatian, Italian, and English). Retrieved 21 November 2015.

Bibliography "Ferdinand Kulmer l'œuvre 1975-1983" Paris Art Center,1983., Paris