School of Design

Belgrade

Final Examination

Nadeda Petrovi

Teacher: Slavica Stamenkovi

Jankovi

Candidate: Nikola

Belgrade, 2014.

Contents

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Introduction
Life and Work
Paintings
Conclusion
References

Introduction

The aim of this paper is to find out something more about Nadeda
Petrovi, and take a closer look at her interesting life and work. It
presents a study involving her biography, her unique style and paintings.

Life and Work

Nadeda Petrovi was born in aak, Principality of Serbia on 11

October 1873 to Dimitrije and Mileva Petrovi. Her father taught
art and literature and was fond of collecting artworks. He later
worked as a tax collector and wrote about painting. Her mother
Mileva was a school teacher and a relative of prominent Serbian
politician Svetozar Mileti. Petrovi's father later found work in
finance and politics. He fell ill in the late 1870s, forcing the family
to move to the town of Karanovac (modern Kraljevo) before their
eventual relocation to Belgrade in 1884. Here, they lived in the
home of Petrovi's grandfather, Maksim. The home in which they
lived was later destroyed by the Luftwaffe during World War II.
Showing signs of being a talented artist, Petrovi was later
mentored by Djordje Krsti and attended the women's school of
higher education, from where she graduated in 1891. In 1893, she
became an art teacher at the school and later taught at the
women's university in Belgrade. Afterwards, she obtained a
stipend from the Serbian Ministry of Education to study art in the
private school of Anton Abe in Munich.

Nadezda Petrovic monument in Pioneer Park, Belgrade

(Gift from city

Arandjelovac, occasion
IX set of Non-aligned
countries in 1989.)

In Munich, she met

painters Rihard
Jakopi, Ivan
Grohar, Matija
Jama, Milan
Milovanovi, Kosta
Milievi, and
Borivoje Stevanovi. She also encountered modern art pioneers
such as Wassily Kandinsky, Alexej von Jawlensky and Paul Klee,
and was deeply moved by their work. While in Munich, she
regularly sent letters to her parents in Serbia and always asked
for them to send her newspapers and books detailing the latest
happenings in the country. Her dedication to her artwork took a
toll on her personal life, and in 1898 she called off her
engagement to a civil servant after the man's mother sought an
unacceptably high dowry. Petrovi returned to Serbia in 1900 and
regularly visited museums and galleries, attended concerts and
theatre productions. She also dedicated much of her time to
learning foreign languages. Her first individual exhibit took place
in Belgrade that same year. She also helped organize the First
Yugoslav Art Exhibit, and the First Yugoslav Art Colony.

Nadeda Petrovis
selfportait

In 1902, Petrovi began

teaching at the women's
school of higher education. The following year she became the
first chairman of the Circle of Serbian Sisters, a humanitarian
organization dedicated to helping ethnic Serbs in Ottomancontrolled Kosovo and Macedonia. In 1904 Petrovi retreated to
her family home Resnik, where she focused on her paintings. One
of her most famous works, Resnik, was completed during her stay
here. Over the next several years, she became involved in
Serbian patriotic circles and protested the Austo-Hungarian
annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina. In 1910, she travelled to
Paris to visit her friend, the sculptor Ivan Metrovi. Staying in
France until she heard the news of her father's death, she
returned to Serbia in April 1911. Upon her return, she resumed
teaching at the women's school of higher education.
In 1912, Petrovi's mother died. With the outbreak of the Balkan
Wars soon after, Petrovi volunteered to become a nurse and was

awarded a Medal for Bravery and an Order of the Red Cross for
her efforts. She continued nursing Serbian soldiers until 1913,
when she contracted typhus and cholera. In the later years of her
life, she had little time to paint and produced only a few
canvases, including her post-impressionist masterpiece The
Valjevo Hospital (Serbian: Valjevska bolnica). Professor Andrew
Wachtel praised the painting for its "bold brushstrokes and bright
colours" and its depiction of "a series of white tents against an
expressionistic, almost Fauvist, landscape of green, orange, and
red. Petrovi found herself in Italy when Austria-Hungary declared
war on Serbia in July 1914. She immediately returned to Belgrade
to assist the Serbian Army. Having volunteered to work as a nurse
in Valjevo, she died of typhoid fever on 3 April 1915, in the same
hospital depicted in The Valjevo Hospital. Following her death, her
likeness has been depicted on the Serbian 200 dinar banknote.

Nadeda Petrovi on a Serbian 200

dinar banknote.

Paintings

Bavarian Wearing
a Hat (1900)
Art Gallery
Nadeda
Petrovi, aak

Graanica (1903)
Art Gallery Nadeda Petrovi, aak

Funeral
in Sicevo
(1905)

Kosovo peonies
(1913)

La Moisson
(1902)

In the Forest
(1900)

Summer Day (1900)

Ship Down the

Sava
(1900)

Beach in
Bretanja
(1900)

Velikafa
(1905)

Resnik
(1904)

Old Prizren
(1903)

The Turkish
Bridge
(1904)

Conclusion

At the end of this paper I hope I have shown the crucial of

Nadeda Petrovis life and work as well as her paintings. This
descriptive study may be regarded as one more step to stress the
most important issue of Nadeda Petrovis work and its meaning
to country we live in.

References

Mitrovi, Andrej (2007). Serbias Great War, 1914-1918.

Uzelac, Sonja Briski (2003). Visual Arts in the Avant-gardes
Between the Two Wars
Cuhaj, George S. (2010). Standard Catalog of World Paper Money
Modern Issues: 1961Present.

Wikipedia.com. Available at:

http://sh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadeda_Petrovi