Professor Žarka Vujić, Ph.D.

Chair of Museology

Department of Information and Communication Sciences

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

Zagreb, Croatia

(zvujic@ffzg.hr)

The Ullrich Salon on its Centennial

or Tavern of the Hundredth Painting

(Book summary. Zagreb, Kontura, 2010)

Introduction (or, why a museologist is writing about a one-of-a-kind tavern in our

capital city)

Fifteen years ago the author of this book had a request to write a piece about the

first art salon in Zagreb, the Ullrich Salon, for the Croatian art magazine Život umjetnosti.

It seems that in this a certain role was played by her belonging to the museological

profession, for it is in fact museologists and museum professionals who, when works of

art are concerned, have the task of exploring the substance and the artistic values, as well

as the social context of the origin and the ongoing life and presentation of artworks to the

public. It was in the framework of this kind of consideration, close not only to

museology but also to the sociology of art, that the idea to write this book was born. At

the time when fairly vigorous work on it was started, in 2008, in Zagreb a number of

major exhibitions were being held, for example, one about the first generation of Croatian

artists trained at the academy of art in Munich, as well as the exhibition marking the 90th

anniversary of the University and National Library’s Print Collection. But none of the

writers concerned mentioned the importance of the role in the life of art in Zagreb and

Croatia played by the Salon Ullrich and its founder, Antun Ullrich (1871-1937). And it

was he who was approached by Croatian artists trained in Munich and Paris, wanting him

to put on exhibitions for them and sell their works in the new salon in 1910. He was

befriended by the founder of the Graphic Collection Artur Schneider (1879-1946), who

retained prints from Ullrich for his collection, for Ullrich had the custom of making

donations to aid the holdings of the first art museums in Croatia.

But while the social setting of Croatian art was not important to others, to the

present writer it was, her ambition being through this book to incorporate into it two

outstanding gallerists, Antun Ullrich and his son Edo (1897-1952). She was assisted by

the consultation of literary sources, as well as by research into the rich set of archival

records kept in the Croatian Academy Fine Arts Archives. These consist of two

inventory books of the Salon, two books of lists of exhibitions up to 1936, a book of the

artwork sales of the salon on commission as well as hundreds of letters between the

owners of the Salon and artists, critics and purchasers.

The social framework of the life of art in Zagreb up to the foundation of the Ullrich

Salon

In the mid-19th century, artistic life in Zagreb was extremely modest. Taking part

in it were itinerant artists, almost all from somewhere else, and art works were exhibited

in small numbers in the shop windows of traders and bookshops and from 1872 in the

Bothe shop in the centre of town. This was a luxury goods shop in which picture frames

and a great many oleographs were sold. Eugen Ferdinand Bothe (1842-1922) encouraged

local artists to paint pictures that he meant to have saleable oleographs made from. It was

only at the end of the 1860s that there was any more mature organisation of the art

world. This was due to a single man – to Iso Kršnjavi (1845-1927). While still a young

man who had been educated in Europe, Kršnjavi realised what foundations had to be laid

for the beginnings of artistic life in a city on the periphery of the Austro-Hungarian

Empire. This meant the establishment of education for the artistic profession (the

foundation of at least an elementary art school in Croatia and up to then the provision of

scholarships for future artists and practitioners of the fine arts to study abroad), the

formation of educational resources such as collections of artworks and craftworks or

collections of reproductions gathered together in museums and galleries, the

development of visual taste in all social classes, the foundation of a chair of art history at

the Faculty of Philosophy and the development and stimulation of clients and a public for

the purchase of artworks so as to provide a decent way of life for the artists. And

Kršnjavi attempted, in his work at the turn of the century, to bring all this to pass. He

founded the art history chair, he organised and created the display for the Strossmayer

Gallery of Old Masters, in 1882 he founded the Museum of Arts and Crafts and in 1905

the Modern Gallery. In 1879 he set up the Society of Arts of which he was also president.

He incorporated into the rules of the Society of Arts the way in which art was to be

supported, by, for example, purchasing and commissioning artworks, by mediating during

sales, giving out artworks purchased among the members via a draw and so on. In 1899

he wrote Critical Considerations. Particularly interesting in this is the chapter

“Economic conditions of our art, the role of art in society”. This makes it clear that

Kršnjavi favoured the existence of agents or mediators during the sale of works of art.

Indeed, he was he was a true representative of the currently dominant social and cultural

opinion that it was beneath artists to sell their own works. When in 1907 the Interim

College for Arts and Fine Crafts was opened in Zagreb (the germ of the future Academy

of Fine Arts) and when after a few years the first artists grew to maturity, and had either

stayed in the town or wanted to exhibit in it the need for a good agent became ever

stronger. Then one at length arose, in the figure of the owner of a glazier’s and framer’s

workshop, Antun Ullrich. It is interesting that the exhibitions beginning of his salon are

linked precisely to Kršnjavi, or the Society of Arts, which had at the turn of 1909 to 1910

had there its raffle exhibition, i.e. the exhibition of works that the members bought from

local artists and then divided among themselves via a draw.

The salon at Ilica 54: the beginnings

Art and culture historians are aware how hard it is to define the formal inception

of any institution. For beginnings, above all, take place in people’s heads. Sometimes it

happens in a flash, but certainly more often comes slowly to maturity over the course of

some time. It seems that this was how it was in the case of Antun Ullrich. He first came

to Zagreb from Slavonia in 1898 and opened up a glassware shop. Soon he started to

equip it to be a shop for artworks. When in 1907 the Interim College was opened up close

by, it was, literally and figuratively, on the artists’ way. He is known to have done his

first frames for Robert Auer (1873-1952), a painter particularly well known for painting

nudes, but there are some letters exchanged with Split painter Emanuel Vidović (1870-

1953) about framing. This shows that Ullrich had one of the few professional workshops

for framing works of art, one that was in business a long time, from Zagreb to Split and

Dalmatia. At that time, around 1909, Zagreb had in fact just one large exhibition space –

the highly prestigious Art Pavilion. And so artists needed not only a dealer, but also a

smaller space in which to exhibit. During 1909, Papa Ullrich, as he was often called by

artists, set up several exhibition rooms in the first floor over his glassware shop.

The grand opening of the Salon was recorded by two excellent caricatures by

Branimir Petrović (1888-1957), the originals of which are in existence. Two, because two

openings were put on – one for the students of the College, and the other for their

teachers, some of whom were good friends of Ullrich. The exhibition season started in

1910 with an international monograph exhibition of the Czech printmaker František

Tavik Šimon (1877-1942), who showed his attractive etchings of scenes in Paris and

Amsterdam. Then Ullrich put on an exhibition for students of the Interim College, for the

later well known painter and art historian Ljubo Babić (1890-1974), the landscape artist

Mihovil Krušlin (1882-1962) and the sculptress Iva Simonović (1890-1961). Ullrich was

to maintain this clear artistic policy, of supporting young artists (including financial

assistance, particularly while they were abroad), to the end of his work as a gallerist in

1927. In 1910 the Croatian painter Vladimir Becić (1886-1954) showed his work at

Ullrich’s; he was then in Paris. Information about the first art salon had spread fast, and

among Croatian artists who were then getting extra experience and training in European

centres like Paris, Munich, Vienna and Prague. At the end of 1910, in fact, on New

Year’s Eve, as reported in an interview with Ullrich of 1935, the hundredth picture was

sold in the salon, and Ullrich organised a celebration and put on his salon the jocular

inscription Tavern of the 100th Picture.

Finally it has to be said that in the archival correspondence letters exchanged

from 1910 on between Ullirch and the young art critic Kosta Strajnić (1877-1977) have

been found. They show that the gallerist from the very beginning engaged and paid for

the services of reviewers and at last in Croatia the well known and often described art

trade – review system was established.

Conditions and secrets of doing business in Croatian circumstances

On the basis of the archival records it can be concluded that several basic forms

in which agency work for works of art were carried out. The first consisted of monograph

exhibitions – which were then called collective exhibitions. Research has shown that the

term came from the conception of a group of artworks or a collection. The artists would

write – “I have prepared, I shall exhibit, a whole collection of works”. A group of art

works was important to everyone. Both to the artists and to Ullrich, who arranged his

exhibitions thus in terms of units. In this way, he wrote in one letter, the works would

show to better advantage.

The preparation of a collective exhibition was not demanding, but if one takes

into consideration that a good many of the artists, particularly after 1918, lived outside

Zagreb and often even worked abroad, it was not all that simple. Artworks were usually

sent unframed, for this was much cheaper. After this they had to be mounted and framed,

and hung in the venue to the comments of the artists themselves. Even then promotion

was considered, and newspaper ads, posters that to begin with the artists made themselves

and invitations to the vernissage were also used. The book includes several examples of

exhibitions, which have sufficient associated documentary evidence for the preparations

to be able to be completely reconstructed. One of them was the first exhibition of Split

caricaturist Angjelo Uvodić (1880-1942), which was held at Ullrich’s in 1917.

Papa Ullrich received payment from the artist for venue hire (which was free in

the event that nothing was sold), for the loan of frames, and would also take a percentage

from the works sold. The commission varies, from 10% to 30% of the sale price, and

would be agreed on separately with each artist. In the amount of commission he took,

Ullrich was similar to the bookseller and art dealer in Munich Hans Goltz (1873-1927),

known for the promotion and sale of works of the Blue Rider group in 1912.

The correspondence has shown that the artworks in the Ullrich Salon were furnished with

captions for exhibition, and that Ullrich wanted to have a description of each work from

the artist. He was convinced that the viewers would want to know which landscapes were

being depicted, for “the ambition to purchase... is much greater for people have travelled

through some of the regions and this reminds them...”

A mandatory part of a monograph exhibition was a self-portrait of the artist, particularly

when it concerned a person unknown in Zagreb. Ullrich would insist on the existence

and exhibition of self-portraits, which were used to acquaint the public with the actual

artists. Most often the self-portraits were left him as a gift, as a recollection of the joint

preparation of an exhibition. If this did not happen, Ullrich would later ask for a self-

portrait to be made for his private gallery. Thus over the course of time, for the purpose of

memory, the fine Ullrich Self-Portrait Collection was created, part of it being kept today

in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb.

Apart from the occasional exhibitions, the Salon also had, as the Ullrich logo

says, a permanent exhibition of the best known of our artists, sculptors and painters.

The third form of mediation was sale on commission, which Ullrich started in 1913.

Artists in debt to the salon had to leave works there for sale on commission. In this way

he protected himself against financial losses. The Ullrich “book of sales on commission”

is full of details about sales and the most important details concerning them – prices, time

of purchase, purchasers (names and addresses and occupations), the return of works that

did not interest the public, works that the salon itself bought, and above all about the large

number of works that Ullrich appropriated for himself because of various debts of artists

to him.

Ultimately, the prices of the works of art were set by Ullrich himself. The artists,

naturally, were always after the highest possible prices. But they had to take realities into

account, particularly the Zagreb public, which was never an easy market for artworks. It

was hardest to determine the final price when the artists lived outside Zagreb. The dealer

had to ask for their permission every time a price was changed (for it might be reduced in

the case of some known purchaser, art lover, friend). Because of the correspondence and

the waiting for answers involved, Ullrich would himself in some cases determine to buy

the whole collection, in order to be able to sell at his leisure while freely setting the

prices. This kind of operation was offered by Ullrich to artists whose works he thought

would find purchasers without any problems. He worked in this way, for example, several

times with the Sarajevo painter Gabrijel Jurkić (1886-1974), who, between the two wars,

was exceptionally popular with his academic landscapes and in particularly his oriental

themes.

Antun Ullrich was a go-between for artist and public, but it sometimes happened

that he was not alone in this triangle, for artists would also have their own representatives

(the painter Irma Poturičić had an impresario in the person of her husband), as would the

purchasers. For example, Kršnjavi in his advanced years was an advisor for Bishop

Krapec in his purchase of artworks, and Ulrich would do business with him whenever the

bishop determined to buy a new work for his collection.

Lovers and/or purchasers of artworks

One of the most interesting issues raised by research into the Ullrich Salon was

that of who the purchasers were. In the first description of the salon, in 1910, writer and

critic Andrija Milčinović (1877-1937) drew attention to the basic social groups that

constituted the market for paintings. In his view lawyers, bankers and engineers were the

purchasers. Those beneath them were not able to buy, and those above them would buy

abroad. It was interesting to find out if this was in fact true. There were ample sources for

research, particularly the two inventory books of the Ullrich Salon.

Milčinović was to a degree right. Bank directors and senior clerks were in the van in the

purchase of artworks from the Salon. Director of Zagreb branch of the Croatian National

Bank of Osijek and president of the stock exchange council in Zagreb as well as, for a

short time, assistant finance minister of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Serbs in

1922, Dušan Plavšić owned one of the major private collections, in good part created

through purchases from Ullrich. He was also president of the Art Society and an art

reviewer. As well, of course, as an impassioned collector. The data in the inventory

books, particularly the absence of any Plavšić purchase after 1922, show what other

historians have already determined – Plavšić’s financial problems when the new state was

founded, and even his bankruptcy earlier in the year. Plavšić’s example as collector was

followed by other bankers, such as Mr Arlavi, director of Balkan Bank. In addition,

banks themselves would buy from Ullrich and use them for business purposes for

associates and important clients.

Analysis of clients showed the Milčinović was also right in the claims he made

about another group, i.e. lawyers. Among them we have identified as particularly

interesting the taste of Dr Ivo Schwegel (1875-1962) from Bled (Slovenia), who was

ambassador for Austro-Hungary in America and was also politically and diplomatically

active in the new triune state. Looking up his acquisitions in Zagreb at Ullrich’s created

only after 1921, it can be seen that he already had a sound collection of contemporary

painting, located in the fashionable royal summer resort, for Bled was precisely that for

Alexander I.

The third group according to Milčinović consisted of engineers, which subsumed

architects and owners of construction firms. Even a superficial glance will show that this

is a group that should have been in the number one position, for it bought the most and

the most expensive art works – large oil paintings of renowned Croatian artists as well as

sculptural works. Particularly to the fore was architect of the Art Nouveau style Lav

Kalda (1880-1956). But the biggest collection was formed at Ullrich’s by Zagreb

engineer Robert Deutsch-Maceljski, as to whose biography at present we have managed

to ascertain very little. It can be assumed, from the artworks he purchased, that this was a

real collector, who constantly acquired high quality works of art, showing a fondness for

the works of Croatian women painters and practitioners of the applied arts.

Milčinović did not mention business people, owners and directors, but they are prominent

as social group with financial power. Some of them were collectors. Among them, the

printer and bookseller Zlatko Kugli of Zagreb was prominent; it has been shown that in

1932 he himself had an art salon and was a competitor for Ullrich’s son and heir Edo.

Other visitors and purchasers were the more wealthy inhabitants of towns in the

provinces – chemists, firm directors and so on. Names worth mentioning, because they

created whole collections through purchases from Ullrich, are Hinko Lederer, owner of a

tannery in Kostajnica, and members of the rich Karlovac family of Fröhlich.

It is interesting that in the inventory books there are special records for foreign

purchasers, though mostly without names, marked only by their gender or nationality –

“bought by a Czech, bought by a foreign lady”... and so on. If we take into consideration

the purchases from Ullrich by diplomats also noticed, it is possible to say that in this way

works of Croatian artists, even if in modest numbers, went off to Europe, undergoing

further reception in new settings.

Of course, there were also art lovers and purchasers who belonged to the

educated classes with more moderate earnings – lady school teachers, drawing teachers in

secondary schools and so on – but they were far less numerous than the others.

The underpinnings and peaks of Ulrich’s artistic policy

As for formal education, in artistic matters Papa Ullrich was self-taught. But one

has to take into account his vigorous associations with artists and his constant education

in art by them. They often wrote to him from their journeys abroad, about what they had

seen, expressing their opinions about it. In addition, which was extremely essential, they

gave him a precise picture of what was going on in the art trade in other European cities.

However, the documents show that Ullrich himself travelled to and did business in

Vienna. He contracted for and supervised the printing of art prints there. Without doubt

he could have gone into art galleries, such as the well known Miethke Gallery in

Dorotheergasse 11. In the ground floor there they exhibited the works of contemporary

masters, with old masters on the first floor. Although Miethke sold the firm in 1904, the

good will and importance of the name of Galerie Miethke were transferred to the new

owners and guiders of art policy. First of all to Carl Moll (1861-1945), who represented

Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) and artists of the Secession, and afterwards to Hugo

Huberfeld, whom the history of art exhibitions most remembers for the Picasso exhibition

of 1914. All this could have been tracked by Ullrich at first hand.

There is no evidence that Antun Ullrich ever went to Paris, but for some time the

Croatian painter Becić lived here, and he actually wrote him well-observed letters on the

mechanisms of the workings of the art market there, and about the well-known

representative of the Impressionists Durand Ruel (1831-1922). Becić encouraged Ullrich

to take on a similar role in Croatia, the role of a visionary who would invest in new art,

unknown to the public and difficult to understand, in order to be able to make a good

profit at a later time. The painter was here actually trying to get Ullrich’s support and

sale of his works in the Salon, for his first exhibition of 1910 was not very successful

with respect to sales.

In comparison with other centres, particularly those in Germany, it should be

pointed out that Ullrich was a contemporary of Franz Josef Brakl (1854-1935), Hans

Goltz (1873-1927), Heinrich Thannhauser (1859-1934) and others. And although he was

not European-famed and although he did not show in his salon works of groups and

artists later acknowledged internationally (save for the exhibition of prints and drawings

of contemporary French authors in 1927), through his activity he did play a similar role in

Croatia. Above all he represented the works of younger Croatian artists, some still

students of the College. He recognised the great worth of Miroslav Kraljević (1885-

1913), a painter who is in Croatia considered the keystone of modern art. For Kraljević

he arranged the only exhibition during his lifetime, and then a posthumous show. By

force of circumstances and thanks to the improvidence of Kraljević’s brother Karlo,

Ullrich came into the possession of a large number of Kraljević works, notebooks and

drawings. He kept them carefully, donated some of them to museums and exhibited them

in his own salon. Something similar happened with the printmaker Ivan Benković (1886-

1918) who died young. The recognition of their artistic values must have been connected

with a mercantile belief in the later appreciation of Kraljević’s and Benkovic’s works and

the making of extra profit during sale.

We also connect with Antun Ullrich the foundation of the Spring Salon, the most

avant-garde artistic phenomenon in the country. It was born in 1916, during the war and

was a kind of fight of the young artists inclined to Expressionism with the older and more

traditional painters. The Spring Salon turned into a permanent annual art event that was

held until 1928; it left the Ullrich salon much earlier, however, in 1919.

After World War I and in the crisis years, Ullrich chalked up several international

collective exhibitions. The first, unluckily, lasted but a week. It was an exhibition of

Czech Expressionists in summer 1919, when the top names in Czech art were making a

guest appearance in Zagreb. Until this day this exhibition has gone without comment in

Zagreb, put on then, as it was, in the dog days of the summer recess, with a few press

notices as well as a few hard words from the reviewers. The last exhibitions in which

Papa Ullrich showed his commitment to art and the support he gave to artistically

valuable painting were two that he prepared during the last years of his work. The first

was an exhibition of French prints, held in 1925, and helped by the working of the French

Institute in Zagreb, while two years later the Zagreb public was able to see mainly

drawings and prints of contemporary French artists, the works, for example, of Chagal,

R. and S. Delaunay, Leger, Lhote and Picasso. Although not large in terms of number of

works on show, it was in its own way a great exhibition.

We have listed the peaks springing from Ullrich’s unwritten exhibition policy.

Between them there were a good many larger and smaller exhibitions of academically

appealing painting, as well as of totally amateur painting, prints and fine crafts of

somewhat questionable value. But as in reality the peaks are more discernible and closer

to the sun, to the marrow of art itself, which Antun Ullrich was able intuitively to discern.

Caricature in a special frame

Ullrich’s characteristics as a person, his blithe spirit and propensity for

amusement and laughter even in the most serious of life’s situations set off a clear Salon

predilection for the promotion of caricature as an art kind of its own. In addition, most of

the artists of newspaper caricatures were academy-trained, and Salon Ullrich served them

as inspiration.

It is interesting that Ullrich’s best friend among the artists was Menci Clement

Crnčić (1865-1930), founder of the Art College and a known Croatian master of drawing

and etching, as well as a painter of seascapes. He was also an outstanding caricaturist and

editor of Satir and Čauš, comic journals from the early 20th century. Unluckily, he never

exhibited his caricatures at Ullrich’s, nor are there any in the correspondence.

But there is one in a letter of Petrović. This is a caricature that tells of art as a fine but

very hard activity, symbolised by a brilliant Expressionist drawing of an artist relaxing in

a hammock. It is worth recalling that the beginnings of the work of the Salon in 1909 and

1910 were immortalised not with photographs but with Petrović’s caricatures. He was a

student of Crnčić and hence the option for caricature, the development of drawing skills

and the ability to observe portrait characteristics were completely intelligible in his case.

Ullrich showed his support to caricature most of all in the organisation of the first

independent show of caricatures in Zagreb and in the whole of Croatia. This was the

1914 exhibition of Baron Hans von Gagern (1987-1942), a caricaturist inclined to

stereotyped visual expression and to appropriations from German artists. The exhibition

was well reviewed in the papers by Kršnjavi, who also said that “the humorous art

exhibition in Zagreb was a novelty”. Gagern also exhibited at Ullrich’s in 1922, and his

caricatures were sold with success on commission. The Ullrich family still has a

reproduction of Gagern’s interpretation of Ullrich as art dealer.

The next caricature exhibition was that of the Dalmatian master of the caricature

Angjelo Uvodić (1880-1942) held in spring 1917. In spite of the war, the caricatures

sold, and Ullrich ordered five copies of caricatures for himself. In 1918 an exhibition of

the caricatures of the young artist Bogumil Car (1891-1969) was put on. It is quite

interesting that this exhibition was the first and last to put Ullrich’s salon on the cover of

a paper. These were caricatures created in the theatre of war and that told that it was

possible to find and interpret funny things even during wartime. In the letters between

Car and Ullrich several of Car’s caricatures can be found, of the kind that this interesting

artist drew the whole of his life as his own diary.

From 1915 to 1917 the illustrated and comic periodical Šišmiš came out in

Zagreb. The founder-editor was Otto Antonini (1992-1959), an artist whom Ullrich had

helped while he was a young painter in training in Italy. It is not surprising the Ullrich

Salon was often caricatured in Šišmiš. Among the caricatures most interesting in

documentary terms are those of the Czech Jan Rambousek (1995-1947) in which Ullrich

is shown talking with a purchaser about the price of a painting in his salon. Also in this

group is the caricature on the cover of the book, signed by young Tomislav Kolombar

(1899-1920). The caricature is not based on a drawing that represents a brilliant source

for the reconstruction of the appearance of the Salon, but on a text in which there is a

comment on the great proportion of prints at the Spring Salon show in 1917, for in the

war the artists used oil not for painting but for dressing salads.

All in all, Ullrich clearly include exhibiting and selling caricatures in his

exhibition policy. Together with the founders of the comic journals, particularly Šišmiš

and Koprive, he made caricature a socially acceptable kind in Croatia, available for the

entire community to see and to purchase.

Ullrich’s impact on artistic creation

Very early on during the research into the phenomenon of the Ullrich Salon it

was noticed that as gallerist Ullrich had a personal impact on the production of some

works of art that he thought would sell the more easily. These were works that were

goods in demand. As artistic kind, sculptural works were certainly harder to sell than

pictures and much more so than prints, the reception of which was broadest. As for

subjects, it was long held that the topics most in demand were landscape. But the archival

records show that this was not quite the case. For example, to Becić, in 1923 Ullrich

wrote, after the poor sales of his works in 1921 and 1922, that he should not paint just

pure landscapes, rather incorporate into them some figurative event, for such motifs had a

greater chance of selling.

Oriental motifs, particularly from Bosnia, were the most popular contents for

Ullrich himself. The first with whom Ullrich negotiated about painting motifs from that

area was Jurkić, mentioned above. In 1916, for the first time he asked him to send “some

smallish thing from Bosnian life.” Then his demand were more specific, and he asked for

more precise studies of Bosnian types “like sitting with their legs crossed or standing in

the bazaar or squatting by a coffee seller or the like”. It should be recalled that this

happened during the war and that Jurkić was most likely in financial troubles, for he

responded readily to these demands. Recently we discovered, privately owned by the

Ullrichs, a number of prints of a similar topic created in the workshop of Milenko D.

Gjurić (1895-1945).

Ullrich also showed a marked preference for depictions of folk costumes and

people and customs from some given region in his artworks. He was himself from a

Slavonian village. But in the interpretation of his preferences one should take into

account the time in which he lived and worked as gallerist. This was a time in which there

were frequent and repeated recourses to the folk tradition in Croatia, particularly to

authentic folk costumes and the embroidery used to decorate them, now reeling under the

influence of industrialisation and modern stylisation. It should also be borne in mind that

elements of folk costume and needlework had been identified as part of the Croatian

national identity in the mid-19th century. At the end of that century the idea of an

indigenous national art style was born, even in architecture, based on the traditional

textile heritage. At the beginning of the new century and after the foundation of the

Croatian Peasant Party national art, in particular in textiles (original or an interpretation

of the original) gradually, even more so after 1918, became “an instrument of political

activity in Croatia”, i.e. a way in which national identity was reinforced.

There is no need to wonder then that Ullrich should have given national costume

an important place, indeed, folk art in general. In the correspondence there is an

interesting letter of painter Zoe Borelli (1888-1980), with whom Ullrich started working

in 1918. She had sent him several paintings, and he after receiving them had replied:

I like them a lot... this is just what we need, scenes from common life, and I most

kindly ask you to do me 10 to 15 items of paintings of this kind.

I would also kindly ask you to do me several characteristic studies of interesting

heads of old men, old women and young women and girls and young people, in

colour if possible, so that we can present the people of your surrounds and the

Dalmatian coast region here in Zagreb... Only not too expensive, please...

Zoe Borelli was not alone. Ullrich sent similar requests to other Croatian artists,

from Dalmatia to Slavonia. But the inventory books do not show that such topics really

did sell better and ultimately it seems that as far as folk costume is concerned, it was

primarily a matter of Ullrich’s personal interest.

The end of the chapter discusses Ullrich’s acquisition of erotic and pornographic

works, particularly from lesser known printmakers in Austria and Germany, and there is

some indication of the way artists procured such material for him from Paris.

Critics and promoters of the Salon

Research into the archives has revealed that Antun Ullrich, by financial and other

ways (lobbying, friendship and so on) ensured that art reviewers would write about the

exhibition activity of the Salon. He also made sure of promotion and stories from

journalists and the support of the papers for which they worked.

The joint activity of gallerists and art dealers was registered in Europe in the

1860s. The beginning is called a new moment, i.e. the moment when patrons were

replaced by agents whose business was to make sure that artists could earn their living.

In Croatia this moment overlapped with the beginning of the work of the Ullrich Salon,

and the oldest proof, a letter from the reviewer Strajnić to Papa Ullrich in which he asked

for financial help, derives from 1910. Actually, in his most fertile reviewing period, from

1910 to the end of World War I, Strajnić covered all the more important exhibition events

in the Salon, most often in Savremenik, journal of the Croatian Writers’ Association as

well as in Pokret, newspaper of the Croatian-Serbian coalition. Thus one of the “formally

best educated art reviewers of his generation” was in Ullrich’s pay. Strajnić had a feel for

the analysis of the design of an exhibition venue and for the way of exhibiting in it. For

him at the beginning the salon was tastefully arranged, as the caricatures amply

demonstrate. Strajnić was an opponent of exhibiting many works at a time, in which case

the salon was more like a shop. Once he wrote: “In every exhibition quality is the most

important. Quantity is subsidiary, and it can impress only traders...”

Another reviewer who really did cover the work of the salon from the beginning was

Andrija Milčinović. There is no real proof, such as in letters, proof of the sending money,

gifts of artworks and so on, that he was being feed by Ullrich. But his writing about the

salon and the exhibitions in it, in Savremenik alone up to 1916, show he was well inclined

to Ullrich. Indeed, we have found sentences that indirectly encourage the readers to

purchase works of art.

Among the critics who worked for the Zagreb papers and were particularly

connected with the salon, the name Vladimir Lunaček (1873-1927) stands out. He most

often published in Obzor. He himself, thanks to his many errors of fact and poor

understanding of Croatian, was criticised by fellow writers and more serious reviewers.

The Ullrich archives show that we can see Lunaček as a man in constant money troubles.

This bound him the closer to Ullrich, from whom he not only borrowed, but to whom he

sold artworks obtained from the painters whom he wrote of. Lunaček covered events in

the salon until his death, which coincided with Antun Ullrich stopping work. It is

interesting that executor of Lunaček’s will, which told of the journalist’s great

indebtedness, was Papa Ullrich himself.

The work of the salon, almost from beginning to end, was covered by articles in

German by Walter Siess, totally unknown to the Croatian public today. The Ullrich

archives first of all showed mass of information about pictures being given to a man of

that name, and then further research showed that this was a journalis who worked for the

opposition paper Agramer Tagblatt and after for Der Morgen. The articles give the idea

of Siess as a man who was artistically educated, who did not restrict himself only to a

description of the content and general impression of a given work of art, but was capable

of writing eloquently about the individual elements of a work of art. He and Ullrich were

connected by their common German ancestry. Hence there is no wonder in the flattering

sentence devoted to both Ullrich and his salon on the occasion of the Christmas

exhibition of 1915: “The small selection [of artworks and artists] that we have brought

out in our evaluation should serve to move our art lovers to visit the Christmas

exhibition, where they will be convinced that not even in time of war has the temple of

Croatian art become impoverished.”

Finally, Ullrich deliberately made sure that the salon figured in a wide network of

daily papers, of culture and literature journals, as well as local illustrated reviews that

through the power of visual information could contribute even more to the good

promotion and sales of artworks.

Real life: from print editions to framing

A cursory glance at the inventory books of the Ullrich Salon will make it clear

that the owner did not in a commercial sense live off the sale of paintings, and still less

from the sale of sculptures (which however commanded the highest prices) but from the

constant sale of prints. This activity, in exhibitions and sales, started significantly with an

exhibition of one of the renowned painters and printmakers, of European fame, František

T. Šimon.

It is not known when Ullrich decided to get into the business of prints and albums

of prints. It was certainly no rarity as far as the rest of artistic Europe was concerned. For

example, Hans Goltz, book seller and gallerist of Munich mentioned above, published

numbers of graphic portfolios and thus additionally expanded and supported the

contemporary art that he exhibited in his salon.

Support for and supervision of the publication of prints in the case of Ullrich had an

additional motive – profit, above all. But it happened that Ullrich would support young

artists by covering the costs of having their prints pulled. This is vividly shown by letters

to and from Dušan Kokotović (1888-1953), whom he helped to make impressions of his

prints in Vienna, as well as taking control of his plates.

As far as topics is concerned, it is clear that in Zagreb, as in other European

capitals, there was a visible interest of artists and public in city views, particularly in their

historical interpretation.

A document that enables the creation of a good picture of Ullrich’s graphic

production is a list of 211 etchings, seven linocuts and four zinc plates that went from the

Ullrich estate to the Croatian Academy Department of Prints and Drawings in 1964. It

tells most clearly of the number of impressions, the topics, and the artists who most often

worked together with Papa Ullrich.

Most prints were made from plates of Marijan Trepše (1897-1964), and not from

those of better known printmaking interpreters of Zagreb such as Crnčić or Branko Šenoa

(1879-1939). In the Ullrich family bequest a number of artist’s proofs were found, and a

few of other top Croatian printmakers, with remarks about changes that had to be made to

the plate for the final impression to be as expressive and qualitative as possible.

Pulling was done in Vienna, as shown by the details of the correspondence between

Ulrich and the artists. Vienna was the cheapest in this respect, certainly much cheaper

than Munich.

Antun Ullrich also sold in the Salon prints that he did not publish himself. Prints

were bought for him abroad by local artists whom he worked with usually. But he himself

made contacts with some foreign printmakers who would make guest appearances at

group shows in the salon. This was the case with, for example, Vladimir Silovsky (1891-

1974) of Prague, whose prints Ullrich sold until the end of the operations of the salon.

According to the inventory books, prints were bought in particular before

holidays, as well as for gifts of honour and for wedding gifts. Foreigners travelling

through Zagreb also bought them. The print, after all, was a rewarding kind from the

point of view of exhibitions, for it was transported more easily and handled much more

easily and without much damage being incurred.

Finally a few words should be said of Ullrich’s first craft and skill – framing and

presenting pictures and prints, which he did not neglect even after the exhibition venue

was set up and his workshop became a salon.

The frame (and other furnishing) of a picture for its presentation has always been

at the same time a component part of the artwork, its border and the final element of

creation as well as a bridge that went from it towards the imaginary and real observer.

Connoisseurs, and others too, do not need to be explained that a well designed and

produced frame can considerably contribute to the value of a work of art, bring out what

we would not be aware of, even change our perception and the judgement of reviewers.

Reading the archival sources, one can conclude that artists then were divided into those to

whom this was clear and those, a smaller number, for whom frames were not all that

important. Particularly prominent among Croatian artists in his concern for the way art

works were presented and the impression that would be produced in the viewer was the

already mentioned Dalmatian painter Emanuel Vidović. He was a perfectionist and if he

did not find in the consignment of specimens just what he wanted, he would draw it in his

letter to Ullrich and send the section of the frame. He also gave precise instructions for

the mounting of his paintings and prints at exhibitions.

Ullrich, it is known, framed and mounted works for the big exhibitions of

Croatian artists abroad. One of them was the first post-war international art exhibition in

Geneva in 1920, at which Croatian artists represented the art of the new state. This

appearance was successful, and part of the credit has to go to Ullrich. He was an expert in

handling and transporting art, which today is both highly valued and very expensive.

The tradition goes on: Edo, Ivan and Ivan again

In 1923 Papa Ullrich had troubles with premises, and in 1925 his letters reveal

tiredness and disappointment with the work, particularly to do with the Zagreb public. In

1927 his salon at Ilica 54 stopped working. But Ullrich had two sons. Antun Junior

(1902-1998) was an architect, while the elder son, Edo (1897-1952), in line with the

tradition of going on with the family business, followed in his father’s footsteps.

The transfer of the family activity from father to son went on in a really interesting way.

In 1926 Edo opened up his own shop with frames and artworks and an exhibition salon

seven buildings further down the mean street, while his father was still in business. Thus

for two years, 1926 and 1927, there were two Ullrich salons, which was completely

unknown until the research undertaken for this book.

The papers covered the exhibitions of both salons, and even described their

policies. According to the journalists, the father supported older and tried and tested

artists, while the son gave more prominence to younger and avant-garde Croatian artists.

In reality and according to the list of exhibitions neither did Papa Ullrich abandon his

policy of encouraging younger artists or the exhibition of artistically valuable artworks,

nor did his son Edo give up on artists who were reliable in pleasing the paying public and

who brought profits, such as the painter of seascapes Aleksej Hanzen (1876-1937) or the

author of attractive landscapes in watercolour Viktor Šipek (1896-1969).

Interpretation of the work of Edo’s salon was much harder. Edo Ullrich left few

testimonies to his work – one Book of Exhibitions 1926-1936 and a few letters, to which

we have added catalogues, newspaper reviews, personal recollections of family members,

as well as Edo’s photographs, from his youth 1918, to his early death in 1952.

Edo Ullrich underwent no particular artistic education but he travelled around Europe and

became acquainted with art in museums and private galleries. Nor should it be forgotten

that from his childhood he associated with artists and that artworks were always at hand.

There is proof that in about 1920 he actively helped his father run the salon (he was called

“the junior boss”), and it seems that his father early on confided to him the supervision of

the pulling of prints in Vienna and cooperation with artists abroad.

Newspaper articles describe his new exhibition space in Ilica 40 as three small

rooms. The photographs that exist however tell that they were functionally and

professionally arranged. As for the exhibition policy, Edo’s son, Ivan, born in 1930, said

that his father’s business motto was: No one has the right to classify (i.e. evaluate) art and

all artists have the right to exhibit their works. In the new salon, then, participants of the

avant-garde artistic phenomena in Croatia exhibited, for example, those who came

together in the art group Zemlja [Earth], 1929-1935, which grew out of the aftermath of

the October Revolution and had a great feeling for the artistic interpretation of the peasant

and the disenfranchised in general, certainly along the lines of Georg Grosz (1893-1959)

and of the Neue Sachlichkeit. Members of the first generation of peasant painters, Ivan

Generalić (1914-1992) and Franjo Mraz (1910-1981), were connected with Zemlja and its

artistic thinking, and in 1936 they had their first individual show in Edo’s salon.

The doors were also open to artists of dubious artistic value but great

productivity. Among them we would emphasise the example of Slavko Tomerlin (1892-

1981), artist who painted in the academic way and most often showed people in

traditional costume from various parts of Croatia. He exhibited at Edo’s twelve times

between 1931 and 1943. This was mostly the time of repressive activity from the

Belgrade regime, which only brought Croats together the more strongly, within the

strongest political party, the Croatian Peasant Party. It deliberately used folk elements as

part of its identity. The success of Tomerlin and others like him then should not arouse

any surprise.

Ullrich’s policy of enabling all to exhibit is visible in its way just before World

War II, as well as during the war. It was fairly bold, in human and civil terms, to put on

in 1939 an exhibition for a Sephardic Jew from Belgrade, a lawyer but also brilliant

colourist painter, Bora Baruh (1911-1942) or twice during the war for an ethnic Serb,

printmaker of the older generation, Milenko D. Gjurić.

Something that particularly distinguished Edo’s salon from his father’s was the

exhibition of applied art, particularly ceramics. The well known women ceramics artists

of the first generation found an excellent space in Ilica 40 for the promotion of their

works. Interestingly, at their exhibitions, the directors of art museums in Zagreb started

buying their works, as they had done painting works during the 30s.

The Ullrich Salon worked on a smallish scale during the war, and was

nationalised after it. What was good was that the premises did not change their use. It

remained an exhibition and sales venue, but now belonged to LIKUM, the artists’ co-op.

And while Edo’s wife Maša (1903-1973) went on doing the same jobs, but now for public

owners, Edo ended up in jail, not for his gallery work, but for some other reasons. The

man we can see on the last extant photo of 1952 is hard to connect with the self-confident

and elegant gallerist, rower and hiker, lover of driving in a Ford convertible and so on.

That same year, Edo Ullrich died.

Everything else was like a silent film – the framing workshop of his younger son

Ivan was founded only in 1969, his grandson Edo’s induction into the work, the

restoration of the name of Ullrich to the LIKUM premises in Ilica 40, the present author’s

entry into their affairs and life in 1994 and her sustained research into both salons. All of

it exists, all the pictures changed from 1952 to 2010, but there was no clear sound,

nothing of the onetime powerful gallerist’s spirit and meaning. Only books and letters

remain, catalogues of exhibitions with lists of prices, a good number of the artworks with

their context and stories, scattered around among private collections and museums. The

people of course have remained, as have their personal memories. For them to become

our common memories and for them to be as strong as possible, this book was written.

(Translation into English: Graham McMaster)