The radical creatives who defined the former Yugoslavian art scene dazeddigital.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from dazeddigital.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
In the 1940s, Murtić was heavily influenced by socialist ideas and designed posters, graphics, and books for the anti-fascist movement.
After the war, Murtić would begin exhibiting and travelling extensively. It was through these travels, especially to the United States and Canada, that Murtić’s traditional figurative approach to painting would transform into a unique take on abstract expressionism.
According to the artist’s biography from the Murtić Foundation, there was a political dimension to this shift as well.
After 1953 and the death of Joseph Stalin, the debate in socialist countries around social realism as the only appropriate revolutionary style would became muted, in the USSR as well as in Yugoslavia.