Љубица Цуца Сокић (1914–2009)

Abstract

Академик Љубица Цуца Сокић спада у ретке, и тим драгоценије, личности наше културе: цео свој креативни и животни век посветила је уметности, тачније сликарству, и у том свом посвећењу видела je велики смисао не само због личног стваралачког задовољства, већ и због вере да ту љубав вреди преносити млађим генерацијама. Уживала је велики углед и као универзитетска професорка и као члан Српске академије наука и уметности, а посебно као пажљива саговорница која је ширила своје позитивне мисли и искуства, с уверењем да култура и уметност оплемењују људе и да у томе треба видети срж напретка и вредности човечанства. Својим субјективним доживљајима тежила је да преобликује живот у лепши и племенитији свет. Њена дела одликују интимистички портрети њој блиских особа, бројни актови и фигуралне композиције најчешће неидентификованих жена, сезановски промишљене мртве природе уравнотежених обриса, као и многи урбани призори и ентеријери који се претачу у каснијем раду у апстраховане композиције складних форми, умирених и хармоничних тонова. Уз то – и понеки предео који ју је посебно импресиони рао. Још у младости је забележила: „Природа је за мене велико уживање” (Сокић 1940–1941: 110 [4])1 . Била је стамена, одређена, одлучна, сигурна у одбрани својих ставова, мирне гестикулације, питомог, сређеног понашања и тихог али звонког гласа који се морао беспоговорно слушати. Тешко да би се могао наћи аргумент или начин који би променио њено мишљење или убеђење. Све вредности је заснивала на општеприхваћеним хуманистичким начелима којих се ни у најтежим животним тренуцима – а они је нису штедели! - није одрицала. То су свакако одлике чврстог карактера, јаке личности, велике друштвене сигурности и неоспорни резултати беспрекорног грађанског васпитања.

The paper about academician Ljubica Cuca Sokić discusses the significance of her painting for Serbian modern art; it provides an account of her life and work; depicts her ties with the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts; analyses her artistic oeuvre from her earliest works to the last, as well as a reflection of criticism over time. Her nine lesser known paintings are described in the paper, owned by her family, and her grandson, his torian Dr Miomir Gatalović, most generously granted permission for their reproduction. These nine paintings are: The Head of an Old Man (1937), Self-portrait in a Mirror (1939), Portrait of Slobodanka Danka Gatalović / Portrait with Flowers (1939), At the Table (1940), The Chair (1940), A Man with a Cap (1949), Sleeping Danka, Portrait of a Woman (probably around 1950) and Girl with Braids (late 1950s?). The paper also provides new information about her famous painting Portrait of Šana Lukić Šotra (1941). Ljubica Cuca Sokić was born in Bitola, on 9 December 1914; passed away on 8 Janu ary 2009, in Belgrade. After completing high school she enrolled in the Art School in Bel grade, in 1930: she initially studied at the Teaching Department (under professors Beta Vukanović, Ljuba Ivanović, Vasa Pomorišac, etc.), and then completed an academic course in 1936 under Professor Ivan Radović. Soon after that, she went to Paris where she stayed for three years, until 1939. Her years in Paris profoundly influenced her painting and her as a person of extensive cultural knowledge. Even though she exhibited her artworks as early as in her student days, her real career began in Paris, with a group of Yugoslav artists (Les Artistes Yougoslaves de Paris). Upon her return to Belgrade, she took an active part in the artistic life of the city, by partaking in spring and autumn exhibitions and by organizing her first solo exhibition in 1939, at “Cvijeta Zuzorić” Art Pavilion. In her lifetime, she had over 50 solo exhibitions. She was a member and a co-organizer of the group Desetorica with whom she exhibited her artworks in Belgrade and Zagreb, in 1940. Besides her, other members of the group were her young friends and colleagues: Aleksa Čelebonović, Bogdan Šuput, Jurica Ribar, Milivoj Nikolajević, Nikola Graovac, Danica Antić, Bora Grujić, Dušan Vlajić and Stojan Trumić. She had a very hard time in Belgrade during the Second World War: her father died, three of her close friends were killed, she lost her civil society privileges, was arrested and interrogated by the Gestapo because of her connections with anti-fascists, leftists and Jews. Nevertheless, she continued to paint and draw, thus leaving valuable traces of life under occupation and bombs, which best can be seen in several of her outstanding self portraits and numerous drawings thereof. Even though one can notice some distant reflections of state-orchestrated art in her artworks created immediately after the war, during a short period of socialist realism, she never succumbed to the influences and pressures of the communist ideology. She made illustrations for children’s books and magazines that were important for the education of many generations and therefore were of a very high standard. In 1948, she was appointed professor at the Academy (later the Faculty of Fine Arts) in Belgrade, where she remained until her retirement in 1972. In 1968, she was elected a corresponding member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and its full member in 1978, as the third female painter ever to become its mem ber and the first one ever with full member status. She received many awards for her work, including the Sremski Karlovci Honorary Citi zen Charter. She bequeathed many legacies and gifts to the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, the National Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Heritage House, the Belgrade City Museum, as well as to a number of other museums and galleries in Serbia. Throughout her art career Cuca Sokić used various art techniques: oil, tempera, gouache, pastel, watercolor, black ink, pencil, blue ink, occasionally felt pen. She some times made graphics and at some point, during the 1960s, she experimented with non artistic materials by applying them on her paintings (sand, varnish, glue, collage). Cuca Sokić considered the act of painting as her reason for existence. In her paint ings, the poetics of small things in a small format, depicting scenes of everyday life and people close to her, was achieved through seemingly simple forms and simplified coloring. In fact, such synthetic compositions were the result of long research and careful visual explorations of ideal shapes, shades, and the harmony shared by all elements of a single component. The art of Cuca Sokić belongs to the ripe and productive period of the 20th century, the century of Art Moderne, and represents a bridge between the language of intimism of the 1930s and the period after the Second World War. Her softened creativity is related to the homogeneous poetics of the intimism movement in which one can recognize the influence of French art, especially Pierre Bonnard and Édouard Vuillard, which Aleksa Čelebonović, her friend and colleague, a renowned art historian and painter, who often wrote about her, defined as her quest for “Proust in painting”. She left important Diary Entries about her dilemmas, uncertainties, work styles, friends and the beginning of the Second World War in Belgrade, covering the period between November 1940 and November 1941, some of which have been quoted. In addition to urban vedute, interiors and still life paintings, Cuca Sokić authored nu merous portraits, mostly of her close friends and her sister Slobodanka Danka Gatalović. She also produced some remarkable self-portraits in the 1930s and 1940s. At the same time, she painted and drew figures and acts, mostly of women, in abstract environments and without individualization. Since the 1960s, her painting gradually moved towards abstracted and abstract forms, with an emphasis on geometricism, always balanced relationships among the elements of composition and enriched color harmonies. In the 1970s, she returned to her distinctive forms and themes, with clearer reminis cences of the world of reality. The personal confession of Cuca Sokić that she “solves everything solely through art” discloses the essence of her relationship with painting: she strived for the accentuated coherence of the whole, calmly colored consonances, keenly contemplated compositional solutions in which each form is weighed with precision and speaks primarily of harmoniza tion, which at the same time was a distinctive feature of her own, exceptionally noble and rare personalit