About the Author

Vlaho Bukovac was born in Cavtat on July 4, 1855. He spent his early childhood and youth far from the family home. At the age of eleven, he left for New York with his uncle Frane. After four years abroad, he returned to Cavtat. Not to burden his parents, fifteen-year-old Bukovac decided to earn for living as a seaman. His maritime career soon ended with an unfortunate accident - a fall into the ship's cargo area. It was during the recovery that he made the first paintings on the walls of his birthplace house in Cavtat.

In 1873, Vlaho went to Peru with his brother Jozo. He earned for living by decorating railroad cars with his paintings. However, after only a year he went for a better job in California. In San Francisco, he began his "amateur" painting career, and he took his first painting lessons. After returning to Cavtat in 1877, under the influence of Dubrovnik poet Medo Pucić, he went to Paris. Thanks to a small study titled „The Hand“, he was admitted to the École des Beaux Arts, in the already filled class of professor Cabanel. He made rapid progress in painting, and in 1878 he exhibited for the first time at one of the world's most prominent exhibitions - the Paris Salon.

Over time, Bukovac was recognized as an excellent portraitist. Even during his school years and later life in Paris, he often returned home and painted in Cavtat, Cetinje, Korcula, Split and Zadar.

In 1892, Vlaho Bukovac married young Jelica Pitarević from Dubrovnik and they had four children; a son Aga and daughters Ivanka, Jelica and Marija.

After arriving to Zagreb in 1893, Bukovac became a central figure and creator of the Croatian art scene. He initiated numerous art events and influenced a whole generation of young painters, thus setting the foundations of Croatian Modernism.

In 1898, just before the opening of the exhibition of the Croatian Salon, disappointed, Bukovac left Zagreb and retired to his native Cavtat.

In 1902 he went to Vienna, where in 1903 he had a large individual exhibition. During the stay in Vienna, Bukovac received an invitation from Prague to fill the vacant position of associate professor at the Academy of Fine Arts. He spent the last twenty years of his life in Prague, devoted to pedagogical work, while going almost every summer to his homeland. Bukovac visited Cavtat in 1920 for the last time. He died on April 23, 1922 in Prague. Bukovac was sent off with the greatest honors and buried in his native Cavtat.