Location: Gallery of Fine Arts (Ulica kralja Tomislava 15)

Dates: December 27, 2025 – February 1, 2026

Exhibition Curator: Iris Slade

Slavan Vidović is remembered in Split as a respected physician and surgeon. He spent the majority of his career at the City Hospital, which, by a twist of fate, became the home of the Museum of Fine Arts in 2009. The idea that “the Museum could relocate from Lovret to the old building on the city walls near the Park, once the hospital had vacated it,” was first proposed in the early 1930s by his father, Emanuel Vidović. Thus, the history of this unique building, with its medical and later cultural functions, overlapped with Slavan’s lifelong interest in both art and medicine. Specifically, in his youth, he tried his hand at artistic creation and maintained a lifelong connection to the arts as a collector.

The son of a renowned painter, he was both talented and knowledgeable about modern art. He exhibited publicly only once, in 1919, at the Exhibition of Yugoslav Artists from Dalmatia in Split. At the major post-war art event, he showed six caricatures under the collective title From the Female World, which received favourable reviews in the Split newspapers Novo doba and Jadran. These publications remain the only record of what are, regrettably, now lost works.

Slavan Vidović’s work is marked by both thematic and stylistic variety. He drew and painted both exterior and interior scenes, portraits, occasional still lifes, and designs for posters, books, ex libris…, drawing on a range of artistic movements, from Fauvism, Cubism, and Dadaism to Expressionism and Neorealism.

Slavan Vidović was born on 1 December 1899 in Split, the eldest of nine children of the painter Emanuel Vidović and Amalia, née Baffo. He completed his secondary education in Split before graduating from the Faculty of Medicine at Charles University in Prague in 1926. Specialising in surgery, he spent the majority of his career at Split Hospital, with a hiatus during World War II when, from 1943, he worked on the islands of Vis and Hvar.

In 1919, he took part in the exhibition of Yugoslav Artists from Dalmatia in Split, presenting six caricatures under the collective title From the Female World, which received positive reviews. While studying medicine, he focused on drawing and painting scenes from everyday life in Prague, preserving these works in two albums which, until now, have not been publicly exhibited.

He maintained a lifelong connection to the arts as a collector. A discerning connoisseur with refined taste, he gradually assembled a valuable collection that, alongside his father’s paintings, included works by Miljenko Stančić, Ante Kaštelančić, Antun Motika, Ignjat Job, and others. Among these, Petar Smajić’s works are particularly noteworthy, as Vidović played a key role in promoting him as a sculptor. They first met in 1933, when Smajić was making gusle (bowed single-stringed musical instrument from the Balkans), and Vidović immediately recognised artistic potential in his work. Encouraged by Vidović, Smajić began carving a variety of wooden motifs, which Vidović purchased and later exhibited at Salon Galić in 1934. This marked Smajić’s first exhibition and proved a turning point, attracting the attention of other artists (particularly the Zemlja group) and the broader public. Slavan Vidović died in Split on 8 December 1972.  

The exhibition opens on December 27, 2025 (Saturday) at 12:00 PM.

More information available at: https://galum.hr/