Exhibition marks 100 years since birth of Ljubica Cuca Sokic

BELGRADE - An exhibition of paintings by internationally acclaimed Serbian artist Ljubica Cuca Sokic will open on Friday at the Gallery of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU).

The exhibition commemorating the centenary of birth of a painter who made a lasting mark on the Serbian 20th century art scene will present 31 of her works from the SANU art collection.

Ljubica Cuca Sokic is the last of the great Serbian artists from the generation that rose to prominence between the two world wars, and brought the Serbian art closer to the “intimist” style of painting that originated in Paris.

She was born in Bitola, Macedonia, on December 9, 1914. She completed high school in Belgrade, where she was taught to paint by renowned artist Zora Petrovic.

Choosing art as her future career, she studied painting with Beta Vukanovic, Ljuba Ivanovic and Ivan Radovic. In 1936 she left for Paris, the world capital of arts, where she lived for the next three years, exhibiting her early works and developing herself as an artist.

She returned to Belgrade in 1939 and held her first individual exhibition at the Art Pavilion. She was appointed as professor at the Academy of Visual Arts in 1948, where she remained until 1972. In 1965 she was elected as a corresponding member and fourteen years later as a full member of SANU.

Sokic remained fully committed to art to the end of her life. She occasionally devoted her time to illustrating children's books and storyboarding, and in her later years she turned to collages and experimented with new materials.

She will be remembered as one of the most poetic of Serbian intimists.

Ljubica Cuca Sokic passed away in Belgrade, on January 8, 2009.