Marijan Trepše
Marijan Trepše (25 March 1887 – 4 October 1964) was a Croatian painter, graphic artist and set designer, considered to be one of the key figures in Croatian art in the early part of the 20th century. In 1919 the seventh exhibition of the Spring Salon opened at the Crafts school in Zagreb. Exhibiting for the first time together, Milivoj Uzelac, Vilko Gecan, Marijan Trepše and Vladimir Varlaj dominated the exhibit with their expressionist works. The Prague Four, as they became known, had returned to Zagreb that year from their studies at the Prague academy and the work of these young painters brought in new expressionist ideas that were to dominate the Croatian art scene of the 1920s. Together with Gecan, Uzelac and Varlaj, with whom he was later to exhibit as the Group of Four, Marijan Trepše represents the link through which Miroslav Kraljević’s style evolved into expressionism. Trepše’s own art moved from early expressionist and classicist inspirations to more open colour and freedom of gesture. His early work was characterised by interiors with figures, generally featuring a single woman. After 1933, he created a series of landscapes from around Zagreb and motifs from the south, and worked as a set designer for the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb. Biography Marijan Trepše was born in Zagreb on 25 March 1887. He attended the High School for Arts Crafts in Zagreb (1914–1918), where he studied under Bela Čikoš Sesija. His studies continued at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague with Max Švabinský, then from 1920 to 1922, in Paris, at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. From 1919, Marijan Trepše exhibited his work at the Zagreb Spring Salon, and later as part of the Group of Four (Gecan, Trepše, Uzelac, Varlaj). In 1926 he was awarded a gold medal for art in an international exhibition in Philadelphia. From 1925 until his retirement in 1956 he worked as a set designer at the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb, and between 1926 and 1931 he taught at the National Crafts School in Zagreb. From 1950, he worked with the Zadar and Zagreb Puppet Theatres. Marijan Trepše died 4 October 1964 in Zagreb. Legacy Trepše is one of those artists who achieved his best work in his youth. Although Trepše was educated at the Zagreb Academy of Bela Čikoš Sesija, his early work shows no traces of the Art Nouveau and Symbolism of his teacher. After graduating from Zagreb, in the autumn of 1918 he moved to Prague, where Milivoj Uzelac had been since 1915. Vladimir Varlaj and Vilko Gecan also arrived in Prague, meeting up with Ivo Režek and Frano Kršinić to make the city an important reference for Croatian modern art. From there, they picked up the new ideas of secessionism and expressionism, which they brought back to Croatian art. An important influence on Trepše and his contemporaries was the artist Miroslav Kraljević, who had died in 1913, aged only 27. While Kraljević had depicted wealthy gentlemen in the company