Art Collections and Art Market in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (1918–1941)

The aim of the project is to analyse the Croatian and Slovenian context of art collecting and the art market in the period following the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy in 1918 and the establishment of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (from 1929 the Kingdom of Yugoslavia). In the new, increasingly autocratic state, a predominantly negative attitude towards old and foreign social and ethnic groups and their art heritage was established. We are interested in how the socio-political changes and the conception of the national in art, influenced the fate and appearance of old and new art collections, and what role the art market played in this process. The examples of inter-war transfers of artworks between Slovenia and Croatia that have been identified so far (e.g., from the collections of Szapáry, Strahl, Chorinsky, Kutjević) show the remarkable potential of a common analytical insight. The necessity for collaboration stems from the research interests of the participating researchers and institutions, and the major gaps in the state of research, which call for a more in-depth analytical and comparative approach and better opportunities for access to relevant archival and other material, as well as direct insight into the artworks in museum and gallery collections. Bilateral cooperation is essential for future research on the provenance of artworks and for a better understanding of the continuity of power relations and the creation of artistic taste and cultural identity in the former Yugoslav space in the 19th and 20th centuries. The main objective is to jointly apply for a major project that would strengthen the European research area by exploring the role and significance of the art market and collecting in the 19th and first half of the 20th century, not only in Slovenia and Croatia, but also in Central and Eastern Europe.