Sava Sandić – harmony of forms and volumes

  • Location: Residence of Princess Ljubica, Kneza Sime Markovića 8
  • Date: April 6– May 14, 2017
  • Organisation:

    Belgrade City Museum

  • Impressum:

    Marija Stošić, curator at the Belgrade City Museum, author of the exhibition

The work of the sculptor Sava Sandić (1915–2016) spans his 60-year long career. The works displayed at the exhibition are only a small part of his rich sculptural oeuvre and they belong to his gift collection donated to the Belgrade City Museum in 2008. On that occasion, Sava Sandić highlighted that the gift, which included 39 sculptures, was an expression of his desire to leave a memorial of his work and life in Belgrade.

Sava Sandić was born in Zaječar, in exile, during World War I. From the early childhood, he showed a predilection for art, and he developed his full artistic potential as an apprentice at the stone carving studio of Avanti Bertot and later, as an assistant at the sculpture studio of Toma Rosandić. In addition to the practical experience gained while working with his teachers, Sandić did not neglect the importance of conventional education and, between the two world wars, he attended Zanatska škola (Crafts School) and the course of figural drawing with the famous Peter Dobrović. He graduated from the Academy of Arts, which he attended with interruptions, in 1954. In the meantime, he was an associate of the publicly funded Master’s Workshop, led by Toma Rosandić. The long-term collaboration with Rosandić left the strongest imprint on his sculptural expression, shaping Sandić as a metuculous, exceptional master of the sculpting technique and shaping of the material. The works from the collection of the Belgrade City Museum are figural sculptures, to which Sandić remained faithful throughout his career. These works offer a unique cross-section of his artistic expression between 1950 and 2003. The works are rendered in bronze, plaster, teak, walnut wood and stone. The portraits, nudes, figurines, animal sculptures are full-round sculptures, low reliefs or medals. The representative examples of Sandić's opus include the monumental figures Caryatid and Flora, the extraordinary Self-Portrait, the expressive Ascete, the delicate female figurines Ballerina, Seated Girl and Woman with a Necklace.

Over a period longer than half a century, Sandić presented his works at numerous one-artist and a dozen collective exhibitions in Belgrade, in many cities of Yugoslavia, as well as abroad. His sculptures are part of museums and private collections on all continents. He was a member of Association of Fine Artists of Serbia and Association of Applied Arts Artists and Designers of Serbia. The latter association awarded him the Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997.