| Dado | |
|---|---|
Miodrag Djuric Dado in the early 70s |
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| Birth name | Miodrag Djuric |
| Born | 4 October 1933 Cetinje, Montenegro |
| Died | 27 November 2010 (aged 77) Pontoise, France |
| Nationality | Montenegrin |
| Field | Painter, Engraver, Sculptor |
| Influenced by | Hieronymus Bosch, George Grosz, Johann Heinrich Füssli, Otto Dix, Piero di Cosimo, Ivan Albright[citation needed] |
Dado (born as Miodrag Đurić, 1933–2010),[1] was a Yugoslavian-born artist who spent most of his life and creative career in France. He is particularly known as a painter but was also active as an engraver, drawer, book illustrator and sculptor.
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Djuric was born on October 4, 1933, in Cetinje, the historic capital of Montenegro, then part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and grew up in a middle-class family. His mother, Vjera Djuric (née Kujacic) was a teacher in biology and his father Ranko Djuric belonged to a family of entrepreneurs.
His childhood years were affected by world events and by personal tragedies. During World War II, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia exdured Italian and German occupation, while the local partisans initiated a resistance that led to the emergence of Josip Broz Tito's Yugoslavia.
At the age of 11, Djuric lost his mother in a country still coping with the wounds of war. He then temporarily moved to Slovenia to be put up by a maternal uncle.
Though not interested in general education, Djuric developed a strong interest in art and displayed early creative skills. His family supported him to develop his talent and he started studying fine arts in the town of Herceg Novi, Montenegro (1947–1951).
From 1951, Djuric moved to Serbia to carry on his education in the fine arts school of Belgrade.[2]
Encouraged by one of his teachers in Belgrade, Djuric moved to Paris, France, in 1956[2] in the hope to work there as an artist. He survived thanks to small jobs and eventually was hired in a lithography workshop run by Gérard Patrice. In the meantime and through his professional environment, he learned French fast enough to be able to meet and interact with well-established artists such as Kalinowski and Jean Dubuffet. These meetings and his showing some of his drawings and paintings raised the curiosity of artists and art dealers alike.
Art dealer and former resistant Daniel Cordier discovered the young Djuric and offered him the unique opportunity to show his work in his art gallery in 1958: Dado's professional career was launched.
Dado quickly moved from Paris to the countryside of Vexin. In 1960, he settled in a former water mill in Hérouval, Oise. This place was a haven of creation and social life until his death.
During these first years in France, he developed a particularly strong friendship with Bernard Réquichot, a French artist whose death in 1961 would deeply affect him.
Dado's painting and drawing activities extended across more than five decades. His paintings are mainly oil painting on linen but he also used acrylic paint and wood or even metal plates as supports.
Though his creative world is highly recognizable, his style and painting technique evolved along the years. While painting, he conducted a permanent search for the essence of energy, progressively abandoning details and fine techniques in favour of less colourful but more dynamic compositions.
An illustration of this evolution can be seen in large paintings such as Les Limbes, La Grande Ferme, Le Diptyque d'Hérouval (1974) and L'École de Prescillia (2001–2002).
From the 1990s, Dado also involved himself in several ambitious fresco projects. The two most noticeable achievements are a set of frescoes in a former vine industry building in Domaine des Orpellières, Hérault and a Last Judgment frescoe in the former chapel of a leper colony in the town of Gisors, Eure.
Drawings and collages have been present in Dado's creative means of expression since his beginnings. The artist initially used pencils and India ink. He also resorted to mixed techniques using gouache, pencils and India ink.
Dado started exploring the techniques of engraving (copper-plate engraving and etching) with the help of Alain Controu in Normandy in 1967. Their collaboration continued until the 1990s.
He continued a substantial work in this domain, including several years in the 1980s in the Lacourière-Frélaut Engraving workshop in Paris and in an engraving workshop close to Hérouval (collaboration with engraver Gabriel Genty).
Sculpture played a particular role in Dado's creation, as premises can be seen as early as in 1962 but most works were made in the 2000s until his death.
In 1962, Dado's first achievement in sculpture was a pole using cattle bones collected in a knacker's yard.[3]
In 1968, Dado exhibited a Citroën Traction Avant car in the CNAC, Paris. The car wreck appearance was totally changed by a profusion of bones.
Dado returned mainly to sculpture in his last decade of creation. In 2009 and under the auspices of Montenegro, a set of 27 sculptures Les Elégies Zorzi was exhibited in the Zorzi palace during the Venice Art Biennale.[4]
From the mid 1990s to 2000, the artist also explored the use of ceramics as a medium for his creation. A most noticeable achievement in this field is a set of ceramics tiles in tribute to French writer Irène Némirovsky.[5]
A fervent books collector and reader, Dado found opportunities to work with writers, poets or essayists, who most of time were friends of him.
Having met French writer Georges Perec, Dado illustrated Alphabets, a book dedicated to word play (1976). After Georges Perec's death, Dado would work on a second version of the book, mainly consisting in enriched illustrations of the first version.
Two important collaborators of Dado were Claude Louis-Combet and Pierre Bettencourt.
Pierre Bettencourt and Dado produced illustrated versions of Les plus belles Phrases de la Langue française, Voyage sur la Planète innommée and Les Négriers jaunes (1995).
Claude Louis-Combet, a long-time friend, and Dado produced several books. Some of those texts were specifically written in order to be published with illustrations of Dado. Including those is Les Oiseaux d'Irène (2007), a personal tribute of both artists to French writer Irène Némirovsky.
In the 2000s, Dado also worked with Jean-Marc Rouillan with the publishing of Les Viscères polychromes de la Peste brune, 2009.[6]
Dado met his wife Hessie, an artist, during a trip to New York in 1962. Originally native of the Caribbean, she moved to Hérouval and married him. They raised five children together.
Though staying most of the time in his secluded home, Dado occasionally left his place to feed his interest in the outer world. In 1984, he was made a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.[10]
Besides travelling several times to New York, he had a unique experience joining a team of medical researchers in Central Africa in 1974, spending a month with the Pygmies of the Central African Republic rainforest. Other noticeable experiences were a discovery of India in 1992 and a trip to Guatemala in 1997.
Influence of these trips is reflected in paintings such as the Boukoko triptyque (1974) and Tikal (1998).
Dado died at the age of 77 in Pontoise near Paris on November 27, 2010.