Ana Milodanović
| Ana Milodanović | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
18 May 1926 Stari Žednik, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes |
| Died | 20 July 2011 (aged 85) Subotica, Serbia |
| Nationality | Yugoslavian, Serbian |
| Occupation | straw artist |
| Years active | 1961-2000 |
Ana Milodanović (18 May 1926 – 20 July 2011) was a Bunjevci Croatian straw artist, or slamarke. She was the first artist to take the traditional folk art celebrating the harvest festival and turn it into two-dimensional pictures. As the first straw artist to join the Artist's Colony formed by the "Group of Six", she won acclaim with her picture Rit in 1962. Her works have been exhibited in over 100 group and solo showings. She has pieces held by several religious organizations and she was featured as one of the artists in a documentary about the craft in 2012.
Ana Milodanović was born on 18 May 1926 in Žednik in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Her sisters, Teza and Đula Milodanović would both become Folk artists as well. In the tradition of the Bunjevac people, the sisters learned the art of braiding straw to create crowns, rings and ornamental objects. The craft developed around the harvest celebration of Dužijanca, when works made of straw were used to express the importance of the crop to the community. Milodanović began by forming religious artifacts of straw, such as Kalež (Chalice, 1956), Jaganjac na knjizi (Lamb on a book, 1957), Sveto Trojstvo (Holy Trinity, 1958) and Pokaznica (Processional cross, 1959). When Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac died in 1960, Ana and Teza developed a crest to commemorate him, which increased interest in the craft. The work is in the collection of the Zagreb Cathedral.
In 1961, a group of naïve artists, including Lajoš Đurči, Lajčo Evetovic , Ivan Jandrić , Ludvig Laslo, Žarko Rafajlović, and Stipan Šabić , known as the "Group of Six" founded an art colony at the "Matija Gubec" primary school in Tavankut. Šabić was the director of the elementary school and Jandrić was an art teacher there. Other artists joined the group of six, including Ivan Prćić Gospodar , a poet from Subotica who would become the drama director of the group. Gospodar recruited Milodanović to join the group, because of her reputation as a straw weaver. Milodanović began creating pictures made of straw, the first artist to use the ancient skills to produce two-dimensional works.
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