Ženskom rukom // By Woman's Hand

SPKD “Prosvjeta” Sarajevo, continuing its consistent research and presentation of artistic and cultural heritage of Serb community in Bosnia and Herzegovina, this year organizes the art exhibition with the comprehensive accompanying catalogue under the title BY WOMAN’S HAND – The contribution of women painters and sculptors to the art of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Adela Ber, Iva Despić, Mica Todorović, Rajka Merćep and Milena Šotra).

The exhibition and the catalogue are results of our research-curatorial-publishing project with the aim to emphasize the cultural significance of the first women artists in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The works of these highly educated talented women (some of them have studied in Vienna, Paris, New York, Zagreb, Belgrade) marked the very beginnings of 20^th century arts in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The project is realized in cooperation with the National Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina that will host the exhibition of the works from its own collection.

Wishing to provide an opportunity for the public to gain even wider insight into the artistic production of these artists, the exhibition catalogue includes not only reproductions of the works from the collection of the National Gallery of BiH, but also from the collections of the National Museum of Belgrade, the Museum of Herzegovina in Trebinje, the International Gallery of Portraits Tuzla and the Sarajevo Museum. In this way, the project achieved a level of inter-entity and regional cooperation.

The story in the catalogue strives to present the spirit of the end of the 19^th and the beginning of the 20^th century when the artists lived and created their works. The topical abundance of these significant works, related mostly to the ambience of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its cities (Sarajevo, Jajce, Zenica, Višegrad, Drvar, Trebinje, Počitelj…) includes portraits and sculptures of important historical persons (King Petar II Karađorđević, Stjepan Radić, Milan Rakić…), self-portraits, landscapes… The artists were using various kinds of visual forms and materials, as brilliantly explained in the introductory study by Vojislav Vujanović, our renown art critic and investigator of cultural heritage and contemporary art in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

We are hoping that this exhibition and its accompanying catalogue will become indispensable reference points for the future research into the artistic production of Adela Ber, Iva Despić, Mica Todorović, Rajka Merćep, Milena Šotra, as well as into the overall contribution of women painters and sculptors to the art of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

President of SPKD “Prosvjeta” Sarajevo

Prim. dr. Savo Vlaški