Lecture series – Katarina Ivanovič – The First Serbian Woman Painter

As part of the lecture series ‘Serbian Women Artists of the 19^th and 20^th Centuries (The Period of Establishment), Snežana Mišić, PhD, will give a lecture titled ‘Katarina Ivanović – The First Serbian Woman Painter’ on Wednesday, 4 March, at the SASA Grand Hall, at 12 o’clock.

Katarina Ivanović (b. Veszprém, 1811 – d. Székesfehérvár, 1882) has been imprinted into the collective national consciousness as the first Serbian female painter and the first female member of the Serbian Learned Society. By choosing painting as her profession, which had been regarded as a male occupation, she challenged such beliefs and fought her way in a patriarchal society, at a time when women artists were a rare occurrence in the 19^th century European cultural circles. It was her coming from a respectable and wealthy family and Hungarian surroundings, as well as the circle of friends and acquaintances she made in Pest and Vienna, who gave her an insight into national ideas, that had a profound impact on her development. She sought to place her artistic endeavours into the service of shaping the national identity in such a manner which was not expected from a woman, according to prevailing social conventions. This brought her to Belgrade, newly liberated from the Turks. The culmination of her patriotism lies in bequeathing her paintings to the Serbian people.

The lecture series ‘Serbian Women Artists of the 19th and 20th Centuries (The Period of Establishment)’ aims to shed additional light on the character and work of Serbian women artists of the 19th and 20th centuries. Some of them have a prominent place in scholarly historiography, whereas some are still awaiting the scientific and expert assessment of their opus. Although art history as a discipline has been researching artisttic creeative work of renowned female artists for decades, it appears that this has not been sufficient, taking into consideration their role and position in the Serbian and Yugoslav art and culture from the mid 19th until the end of the 20th centuries.

The series intends to examine societal, gender, ideological, class, stylistic and other characteristics of artistic works of selected female artists from the contemporary methodological point of view. An additional goal is to connect them with the culture and society of the period in which they were created. Conceived as a platform to critically evaluate their artistic opus and encourage the inclusion of the studied women artists into the canon of Serbian art history, this lecture series should further stimulate scientific study of female artists. In addition to providing scientific results, the series is envisaged to familiarise the broader public with iconographic, stylistic, thematic and other unique features of women artists’ creative work in our region.