Safet Zec
Zec was born in 1943, the last of eight children of a cobbler. Displaced by the war, the Zec family
endend up in Sarajevo. His artistic talents became evident even in childhood. By the time he made
it to the Belgrade Academy of Fine Arts, he was clearly something of a prodigy. Yet when Zec was
in Belgrade,post-modernism was well on the way to becoming the ruling orthodoxy. Finding himself,
as a figurative artist, swimming against the tide of the prevailing fashion, he felt redundant and
increasingly disillusioned. He even destroyed most of his earlier work. He thought of giving up
altogether and becoming a musician. But in the end he knew he had to go on painting. For some
years the artist continued to live in Belgrade, during which time he and his wife Ivanka bought and
restored an old house in the historic Ottoman of Pocitelj, near Mostar, which was becoming a kind of
artist's colony. He established a workshop there in 1983 to print engravings. Four years later, he moved
back to Sarajevo while still shuttling back and forth to Pocitelj.
Before the disintegration of Yugoslavia, Zec was a well-known painter at home, his fame steadily spreading
abroad and his work being shown in galleries all over Europe, in North and South America and Japan. In
1991 Zec's dream of a tranquil life devoted to artistic endeavour began to evaporate. Having been raised in
a city where mosques, Orthodox and Catholic churches and Synagogues were intermingled, where he had
friends from every religious background and never encountered any hostility between the different groups, Zec
is still clearly baffled and disillusioned by the disaster that overwhelmed the place. The war arrived first in Pocitelj.
The ancient mosque there was destroyed, Zec's printworks and studio were burned out, and his engraved plates,
representing years of work, disappeared. The siege of Sarajevo followed, the deaths of friends and colleagues, the
decision to seek refuge elsewhere.
In 1992, unable to continue to paint and support his wife and young children as the bombardments of Sarajevo
intensified, he left the city, and, at last found studio space in the town of Udine th the north-east of Venice. With the
help of the fine-art printer Corrado Albiccoco who opened the doors of his workshop to him, Zec was able to start
anew. This extended period of reluctant exile in provincial obscurity produced an extraordinarily rich body of new
work, which Zec has continued to add to with undiminished energy since finding a place to live and paint in Venice in 1998.
adapted from Roderick Conway Morris A Bosnian Painter's Window on War and Life, International Herald Tribune, September 1999.
One man shows :
2005 Venice, San Giovanni Evangelista
Pordenone, Galleria Sagittaria
2004 Sarajevo, Studio-collezione Zec, “Grazie Van Rijn”
Brcko, Contemporary Art Gallery
Mostar, Domicil Gallery
Mostar, Cultural Center
Orbino, Casa Raffaello
Fiume, town museum
Udine, stamperia d'arte Albicocco,“Grazie Van Rijn”
Paris, Jean-Jacques Dutko Gallery
Paris, Miro room, UNESCO
2003 Metz, Maison de la culture et des loisirs de Metz
Sarajevo, Studio-collezione Zec, opening to the public
Sarajevo, Bosnjacki Institut, Adil Zulfikarpasic Foundation “Opere 2001- 2003”
Paris, Michèle Broutta Gallery, “Red Table Rouge”
Sarajevo, National Theater, “Fortezza”
2002 Venice, Galleria del Leone, “Red Table Rouge”
Paris, Galleria Le Lys, “Grazie Van Rijn”
Tuzla, international portrait Gallery, “Le mani sul volto”
2001 Sarajevo, Collegium Artisticum, “Opere 1958- 2001”
Feurs, Assier museum
Lille, Sainte Marie Madeleine church ,”Pitture, disegni, incisioni”
Rosazzo, Abbazia di Rosazzo, “condivisioni”
Abbeville, Abbeville Museum
2000 Paris, Europe Gallery
Venice, Ca' del Duca
Paris, Michèle Broutta Gallery
New York , Mark Murray Fine Paintings, “Venezia”
1999 Gorizia, Centro culturale Lojze Bratuz cultural center
Bihac, Town Gallery
Sarajevo , Holiday Inn Congress Hall
Paris, Le Lys Gallery
Budapest , City Gallery
Venice, Galleria del Leone, “Le Finestre”
Paris, Mezzo Restaurant-Gallery
1998 Zagabria,Bosnia Erzegovina cultural center
Dubrovnik, Marin Drzic Gallery
Mostar, cultural center
Lubiana, Vila Tivoli Gallery
Lubiana, Cankarjev Gallery
1997 Paris, Le Lys Gallery
Sarajevo, Collegium Artisticum
“L'artista, la lastra, il racconto”
1996 Belluno, Galleria A. Boito
Comiso, Galleria degli Archi
Milano, Biblioteca Trivulziana, Castello Sforzesco
Pesaro, Galleria La Pergola
Udine, Stamperia d'arte Albicocco, “Il tavolo Rosso”
1995 Chamalières, Contemporary art gallery, Gradisca d'Isonzo
Contemporary art gallery “L. Spazzapan”, “L'artista, la lastra, il racconto”
1994 Conegliano, Palazzo Sarcinelli, “Opere 1960- 1994”
1993 Udine, Colussa Gallery
1992 Mostar, Domicil Gallery
1991 Dubrovnik, Sebastijan Gallery
1990 Sarajevo, Dom Pisana Gallery
Frankfurt, Hans Hoeppner Gallery
1989 Belgrade, Arheo Gallery
Mostar, Domicil Gallery
Subotica, City Gallery
1988 Skopje, Art Gallery
Dubrovnik, studio 57 Gallery
New York , Yugoslav Press and Cultural Center
1987 Hamburg, Hans Hoeppner Gallery
Trebinje, Cultural center
1986 Novi Pazar,Sopocanska vidjenja Gallery
Zagabria, Josip Rajcic Gallery
Lubiana, Ars Gallery
1985 Spallato, Alfa Gallery
Koprivnica, Podravka Gallery
Mostar, Mostar University
Stolac, Museo Branko Sotra
Mladenovac, Cultural center
Belgrade, Cultural center gallery
1984 Sarajevo, graphic arts Gallery
Novi Sad , small figurative fair
Istra (Pazino, Parenzo, Pola, Rovigno)
Sarajevo, Bosnia-Erzegovina Art Gallery
Barcelona, Toledo, Escorial, Gallery Caja postal
Visoko, Atelier figurativo
Zenica, Town Museum
Banja Luka, Cultural Center
Belgrade, Theater Gallery
1983 Belgrade, AZ Gallery
1981 Cambridge, MA., BAKK Gallery
1980 Monaco de Bavière, Hans Hoeppner Gallery
New York, Customhouse, Museum Area, World Trade Center
1979 Hamburg, Hans Hoeppner Gallery
1978 Cacak, Nadezda Petrovic
Priboj, Cultural Center Gallery
Nova Varos, Cultural Center
Zagabria, Dom J.N.A. Gallery
1977 Belgrade, Cultural Center Gallery
1975 Lubiana, Mala galerija
Sorrento, Chiostro di San Francesco
1974 Novi Sad, Radivoj Cirpanov Gallery
Dubrovnik, Sebastijan Gallery
1973 Rabat (Morocco), Ministry of Culture, with Ivanka Lekaj
Belgrade, Cultural Center Gallery
1972 Sarajevo, artistic pavillion
Belgrade, works on paper
1970 Djakovo, August Cesarec figurative fair.
