LIZA KRIZANIC (1905-1982)
Currently not in inventory.
Liza Krizanic (1905-1982)
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Born as Draginja Marić in 1905, she was known in her childhood by the nicknames Draga and Liza. She received her initial art education at Skopje High School from Hristifor Crnilović. She graduated in 1923. She then moved to Paris in 1925 and shared a flat with her friend, Desanka Maksimović where she learned French, did a little painting in the studio of André Lhote.
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She married the cartoonist and painter Pjer Križanić in 1926. She retained his surname even after their divorce in 1950. She visited museums and galleries, attended classes in esthetics and art history at the Sorbonne. She eventually graduated from the Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy.
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Starting in 1931, she learned painting from Miloš Vušković and other artist friends, many of whom did portraits and nudes of her (Kumrić, Zora Petrović, Job, Uzelac, Milunović, Dobrović, Bešević, Gecan, etc.). She briefly attended Dobrović’s drawing classes, spent half a year at advanced studies in London and visited Rome in 1937.
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She painted mainly in oil, much less in tempera, pastel or water-colours. Above all she painted flowers, then motifs from Belgrade and Dubrovnik, landscapes, portraits and only a few interiors, still lifes and figures. She did some drawings and mosaics, and also wrote humorous comments which accompanied Pjer’s cartoons.
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She belonged to the intimist and poetic realist movements, sometimes intertwined with the spirit of colouristic expressionism. From 1939, she regularly participated in group art exhibitions. Most of her works are kept and displayed in the Liza Marić-Križanić Legacy Gallery in Kosjerić and some in the National Museum in Belgrade and in the Belgrade City Museum.
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She died in Belgrade in 1982.
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Biography adapted from the Pavle-Beljanski Gallery biography.
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