About the museum:
The gallery activity in Krapina started in 1973, when an aperitif bar was opened as part of the Find of Krapina Prehistoric Man and Museum of Evolution, in which the Hušnjakovo Gallery was set up, where artists exhibited their works until 1993, at which time the Krapina City Gallery was opened. The gallery works as part of the city’s adult education centre. The house of the lawyer Majcen, in which the gallery is located, was built in the second half of the 19th century in Classicist style. It is a prestigious structure of the era, and has historical value, for well known names of the Croatian Revival would gather. In this house Bishop Strossmayer, a great friend of the Majcen family, met Ante Starčević, and in 1912 Dr Vlatko Maček was a trainee of Dr Josip Majcen. The descendants of the Majcen family, Zdenka and Nada, gave the house to the city on condition that there should be a gallery in the building when they had passed on. The Krapina City Gallery was opened in 1993 on the occasion of the marking of the 8th centenary of the first written mention of Krapina, with an exhibition of the paintings of Edo Kovačević and another of 800 Years of the City of Krapina. So far, more than a hundred exhibitions of contemporary artists have been held in the gallery (Kovačević, Lovrenčić, Labaš, Dajht-Kralj, Kauzlarić, Lončarić, Opačić, Radej, Čular, Trogrlić, Grgas, Postružnik, Vuco, Drempetić) as well as exhibitions of the Krapina-born painters Ernest Tomašević and Josip Seissel and the sculptor Rudolf Valdec. Since 1996 the triennial Zagorje Fine Arts Salon has been held here, at which only artists born in or related by their work to Hrvatsko Zagorje exhibit. The gallery is particularly proud of the considerable number of paintings by Krapina-born Ernest Tomašević, a representative of Croatian Modernism. Other others figuring in the collection of the Gallery are Oton Postružnik, Mirko Rački, Ivo Režek, Ksenija Kantoci, Ivan Sabolić, Želimir Janeš, Vjekoslav Rukljač, Ferdo Ladika, Ivo Šebalj, Raul Goldoni, Aleksandar Srnec, Zvonimir Lončarić, Ivan Lovrenčić, Ivan Antolčić, Zlatko Zlatić, Vera Dajht Kralj, Josip Diminić, Izvor Oreb, Ivan Lesiak, Zorislav Drempetić Hrčić, Jure Labaš, Rudolf Labaš, Tihomir Lončar, Darko Bakliža, Neven Šimić, Ivo Radošević, Đurđena Zaluški Haramija, Zorica Turkalj, Marta Makanec, Nenad Opačić, Duško Šibl, Zlatan Kovač, Vasilije Josip Jordan, Nives Kavurić Kurtović, Ivan Kuduz, Zlatko Čular, Alem Korkut, Josip Botteri Dini, Ljerka Njerš, Zlata Radej, Heda Rušec, Antun Boris Švaljek, Vatroslav Kuliš, Mirjana Drempetić Hanžić, Gordana Kovačić, Valentina Šuljić and Koraljka Kovač. Many of the works in the holdings derive from the international sculpting symposium called Forma Prima, held in Krapina.
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