Olga Jevrić

Ješa Denegri

Olga Jevrić’s sculpture is well known, thoroughly researched and held in high esteem in her homeland.1 Born in 1922, Jevrić graduated from the Belgrade Academy of Music in 1946 and two years later from the Academy of Fine Arts, after which she received a Master’s degree in art history from the faculty of philosophy of the University of Belgrade. Her academic background is particularly notable and points indirectly to the character of her sculpture: her purist, abstract sculptural language can be regarded as relating directly to her study and knowledge of music. After nearly ten years of taking part in group exhibitions, and her first solo exhibition at Belgrade’s ULUS Gallery in 1957, when she was working in a more traditional figurative style, Jevrić’s new, abstract sculptural language signalled a significant development in contemporary art in Serbia. As a result of her participation in the 29th Venice Biennale in 1958, where her work was acclaimed by significant European critics, she had her first solo exhibition outside Yugoslavia the following year, at Luciano Pistoi’s Notizie Gallery in Turin, and a three-person exhibition at Halima Nałęcz’s Drian Galleries in