Academician Petar Omčikus passes away

Academician Petar Omčikus, a Serbian eminent painter passed away in Belgrade, on 26 April 2019. He was born in Sušak near Rijeka in 1926. He attended the School of Applied Arts and the Academy of Fine Arts in the class of Professor Ivan Tabaković in Belgrade from 1945

He is one of the founders of the Zadar Group (Zadarska grupa) founded in 1947. Together with Mića Popović, he initiated departure to Dalmacija and free painting in nature in the spring of the same year. He lived and worked with a fellow painter Kosa Bokšan, moving to Paris in 1952, and from 1957 he had an atelier at 11 Rue Dedouvre in the Gentilly commune. He continued painting and exhibiting.

He participated at La Biennale Paris in 1961 at the invitation of French critics. Seven years later, he built a house with an atelier in Korčula and organized international gatherings of intellectuals, philosophers, artists and critics. He was a member of the Group of Eleven (Jedanaestorica).

He became SASA External Member in 1994. He was elected a Corresponding Member in 2012 and a full member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in 2015.

Notable awards include the First Prize of the October Salon in Belgrade in 1972, the First Prize at the exhibition of Yugoslav Portrait in Tuzla in 1979, the First Award at the International Biennial of Portrait, the First Prize at the 9th International Biennale in Rijeka in 1984, Politika Award, etc.

He had solo exhibitions in Paris, Lille, Rome, Geneve, Podgorica, Novi Sad, Zagreb and other cities, also participating in numerous group exhibitions. He was interested in painting, drawing, mosaic, graphics, illustration and sculpture.