Neretva Siesta

Vladimir Becić was born in Slavonski Brod in 1886. He enrolled in the Law Faculty in Zagreb and also attended a private painting course at the Trades School. In 1906 he enrolled in the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich (Hugo von Habermann). In this class, under the influence of Josip Račić, a style of painting was created that had very few points of contact with Habermann’s poetics. They drew on the work of Wilhelm Liebl, Manet, Frans Hals, Goya, Velasquez... From this manner of painting they were called Die Kroatische Schule, while in Croatian art history Becić, Kraljević, Račić and Herman are called the Münich Circle. In 1909, Becić went to Paris, and worked at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière; in 1916 he worked for L’Illustration, in which he published drawings, photos and reportages. In 1919 Becić went to Blažuj (Bosnia and Herzegovina), where with the arrival of the painters Vilko Šeferov and Karl Mijić a little art colony was founded that lasted until 1923. From 1930 to 1935 he worked as a part of the Group of Three (Babić, Becić and Miše). Subsequently, Babić and Becić expanded the ensemble so that it became the Group of Croatian Artists, which was at work from 1936 to 1939. He taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb from 1924 to 1947. Becić died in Zagreb in 1954.