Đorđe Andrejević Kun

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Self Portrait by Djordje Andrejević-Kun, 1925

Djordje Andrejević-Kun (1904, Breslau, Germany - 1964, Belgrade, Yugoslavia) was a Serbian painter of great renown. He was the designer of the Coat of Arms for Belgrade as well as Tito's flag of Yugoslavia. He is frequently cited as one of the greatest Yugoslav painters.

[edit] Life

Djordje was born to Serbian parents in Germany, but conducted most of his education in Berlin and Belgrade. He was a graduate of the "Belgrade Academy of Art". He further studied in Italy (1926-1928) and Paris, France (1928-1929). In 1931, his design won First Prize for the Coat of Arms of the City of Belgrade, which it remains today. In 1931 and 1932, he had one-man shows in Belgrade, Zagreb, and Novi Sad.

Still Life, 1930

In 1934, he joined in forming the Život group (AKA Life Group) of Yugoslavian artists. His woodcut set Blood-soaked Gold (Krvavo zlato) was published in 1937. He fought with the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War during which time his woodcut set For Freedom (Za sloboda) was published in 1939. The next year he published his collection Sketches, Drawing, And Studies (Skice, crtezi, studije) in Spain. From 1941 to 1945, he was a member of the "Yugoslav National Liberation" forces.

In 1946, his drawings Partisans (Partizani) were awarded the Yugoslav Federation Prize for Graphics, and in 1949, his oil work Witnesses of Horror (Svedoci užasa), the Yugoslav Federation Prize for Painting. In 1951-1953 he belonged to the Independents (Samostalni). In 1945, he joined the faculty, as full-professor, of the "Academy of Fine Arts" in Belgrade, and, from 1959-1963, he was Dean of the Department of Fine Arts of the University of Belgrade, after the Academy had been incorporated into the University.

In 1950, he was elected a corresponding member of the "Academy of Arts and Sciences", and in 1958, a full member. From 1957 to 1960, he was president of the Yugoslav Federation of Artists. In the years following World War II, he had one-man shows in Belgrade (1953 and 1959), Kragujevac, Čačak, Niš, Skopje, Zemun, and Sombor, and in Berlin in 1963.

The inventory of his work lists some 300 paintings, among them the monumental as well as the small and intimate. More than 60 are in museums in the country and abroad, about as many are owned by government institutions and enterprises, and the rest are in private collections. Over 1000 drawings are listed; most of them are in museum collections. The few surviving complete, first-print sets of Blood-soaked Gold and For Freedom are owned by museums in Belgrade. He has three mosaics, one at the War Memorial in Ivanjica, a second on the façade of a public building in Kragujevac, and the third at the Holocaust Museum in Paris.

Djordje Andrejević-Kun died on January 17, 1964, in Belgrade.