Ivan Rabuzin

Ivan Rabuzin
Born(1921-03-27)March 27, 1921
Ključ, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes
DiedDecember 18, 2008(2008-12-18) (aged 87)
Varaždin, Croatia
NationalityCroatian
Known forPainting
MovementNaïve art

Ivan Rabuzin (27 March 1921 – 18 December 2008)[1] was a Croatian naïve artist. French art critic Anatole Jakovsky described him in 1972 as "one of the greatest naïve painters of all times and countries".[2]

Rabuzin's father was a miner, and Ivan was the sixth of his eleven children. Ivan worked as a carpenter for many years, and did not begin painting until 1956, when he was thirty-five years old. He had little formal training as an artist, but his first solo exhibition in 1960[3] proved successful and he changed careers, becoming a professional painter in 1962.[4] His 1963 exhibition in Galerie Mona Lisa in Paris marked the beginning of the rise of his international reputation.[3]

Rabuzin's art is characterized by dense geometric patterns of vegetation and clouds that form rich, arabesque-like structures painted in gentle pastel colors.[3] His motifs were described as an "idealistic reconstruction of the world".[3] He took a stab at industrial design in the 1970s with a 500-piece run of the upscale Suomi tableware by Timo Sarpaneva that Rabuzin decorated for the German Rosenthal porcelain maker's Studio Linie.[5] In 1989, at the time of the 9th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Belgrade, municipalities from Zagorje, Gospić, Karlovac and Sisak region provided a mural by Ivan Rabuzin as a commemorative gift for a building in Knez Mihailova Street.[6]

Rabuzin was active in politics as a member of Croatian Democratic Union, and from 1993 to 1999 he was also a member of the Croatian Parliament (in the second and third assemblies).

Rabuzin stopped painting in 2002 due to an illness.[2] He died on 18 December 2008 in a hospital in Varaždin, Croatia.[1]

  1. ^ a b "Earth Times: Show/247087,croatian-naive-painter-rabuzin-dies-at-87.HTML". Archived from the original on 2019-07-10. Retrieved 2008-12-22.
  2. ^ a b "The 95th anniversary of the birth of Ivan Rabuzin". hmnu.hr (in Croatian). Croatian Museum of Naïve Art. 24 March 2016. Archived from the original on 27 August 2018. Retrieved 3 January 2020.
  3. ^ a b c d "Klasik hrvatske i svjetske naive" (PDF). Vjesnik (in Croatian). 20 December 2008. p. 14. Retrieved 8 December 2020.
  4. ^ "Galerie St. Etienne, Ivan Rabuzin". Archived from the original on 2009-02-13. Retrieved 2006-01-14.
  5. ^ [Anon.] (1976). "Faenza-Goldmedaille für SUOMI". Artis. 29: 8. ISSN 0004-3842.
  6. ^ n.a. (n.d.). "Mural Ivana Rabuzina". Nesvrstani.rs, Museum of African Art, Belgrade. Retrieved 1 February 2024.