I was just alerted about this post from the PixCap website titled "20 Famous Graphic Designers Who Shaped the Industry".
I am not sure exactly how I deserve to be one of the twenty, but in this case, I am deciding not to complain about being in the company of Paul Rand, Saul Bass, Milton Glaser, Massimo Vignelli, and others.
You can read more here.
When my mother moved from Croatia to Bosnia, she took lots of my papers, posters, and art with her which I left in her house at different occasions, including when I moved to the United States in '86. When she died, I asked a friend of mine Dejan Krsic to go to her house and take whatever he thinks is worth keeping and bring it back to Zagreb.
For one reason or another, I have never thoroughly gone through these things, especially the small papers. Having a little bit more time during my visit to Zagreb a week ago, I decided to check those out. Among other things, I came across these two drawings of younger me that I had almost forgotten.
The first is a small drawing of me by Andrija Maurović in 1975. Andrija Maurović (1901-1981), is considered the father of Croatian comics. His comics are probably, without exaggeration, the most interesting comics in Europe created at that time. His comics had a big influence on me as a kid, and I remember how pleased I was when he suggested drawing a portrait of me.
The second drawing/caricature that I found was drawn in 1978, two years later, by Oto Reisinger (1927-2016), an amazing Croatian cartoonist and caricaturist. At the time that he drew my caricature, I was already an "established" illustrator and comics author. That is why he wrote the dedication next to the drawing "to colleague, Mirko." That recognition from him was even more important to me than the buck-toothed face of mine he drew.
On Friday, April 12, within the "Face to Face" exhibition, the Museum of Modern Art of Republika Srpska organized a round table with the exhibition curator Marko Golub, graphic designer Borut Vild, and graphic designer and art historian Dejan Kršić and me. The conversation was led by Sarita Vujkovic, director of MSURS.
On Thursday, April 11th, the Museum of Modern Art of Republika Srpska opened an exhibition of my works titled "Face to Face.”
'This exhibition, for the first time in our country, offers the opportunity to look at Ilic's rich career. The exhibition of Mirko Ilic, one of the world's leading designers, born in Bijeljina, shows several cycles of posters and other graphic design works, one number of which were donated to the Museum of Modern Art of Republika Srpska. Within the exhibition, his original works, part of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art collection in Rijeka, are shown as posters made for the Yugoslav Drama Theater in Belgrade as well as comic books combined with reproductions. The exhibition was realized in cooperation with the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rijeka and the Croatian Design Society in Zagreb.’
The exhibition was curated by Marko Golub and designed by Nemanja Mićević. It will be open until June 6th, 2024.
I would certainly like to thank the staff of the Museum of Modern Art of Republika Srpska and, above all, the museum's director, Sara Vujković; without her efforts, this exhibition would not have happened.
