Pavo Majić (1949–2026)

Croatian printmaker, painter, gallerist and writer, and the founder of the Splitgraphic International Print Biennial. In 1983, he established Studio Naranča in Split, which grew from a small design studio into an art gallery in the heart of Diocletian’s Palace, dedicated to presenting contemporary Croatian and international art.

Throughout his career, he participated in more than seventy solo and group exhibitions in Croatia and abroad, including in Split, Zagreb, Dubrovnik, Ljubljana, Venice, Berlin, London, New York, Stockholm, Tokyo and Lisbon. His works are held in numerous public and private collections, including the Moderna galerija in Ljubljana, the Dubrovnik Art Gallery, the Museum of Contemporary Art on Hydra in Greece, and the Okinawa Prefectural Museum of Modern Art in Japan.

Two closely related worlds stand out in his artistic work: the Mediterranean and poetry. In his prints and paintings inspired by Mediterranean imagery, as well as his portraits of poets, musicians and other artists, Majić explored the expressive possibilities of visual signs, colour and formal economy. Art historian Tonko Maroević drew particular attention to his pursuit of the elemental sign and the concision of form, and to the relationship between Mediterranean symbolism and poetic expression.

Majić produced five portfolios of prints: Pop Portraits (1992), Homage to Tin Ujević (1995), Poet Portraits (2002), Homage to Bob Dylan (2006) and Mediterraneo (2012). He received international recognition for works from the Mediterraneo series and his portrait of Tin Ujević.

The Croatian poet Tin Ujević occupied a particularly important place in his work, inspiring a series of graphic portraits and exhibitions. In 2005–2006, Majić presented Homage to Tin Ujević in Berlin, an exhibition featuring portraits of 26 poets. In 2007, he exhibited at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York, where an evening of poetry dedicated to Ujević was also held, with the participation of Marina Majić Petit.

Alongside his visual art, Majić was also a writer. He published three books: Do Not Fear! You’re Not Alone! – Homage to Tin Ujević (2006), in collaboration with Marina Majić Petit; The Anatomy of Breath (2016), a poem published as a limited-edition artist’s book; and Rolling Oranges (2018), a collection of travel writing and autobiographical reflections.

In 2003, he founded the Splitgraphic International Print Biennial within Studio Naranča, directing its ten editions and bringing together Croatian and international artists, curators and institutions. His participation in the Ljubljana International Biennial of Graphic Arts in 1995 partly inspired the initiative, but his principal motivation was to connect contemporary printmaking with Split’s long tradition of graphic art, particularly Robert Adam’s celebrated collection of engravings depicting Diocletian’s Palace, published in 1764.

Reflecting on his reasons for founding Splitgraphic, Pavo Majić wrote:

“…we founded Splitgraphic in the belief and hope that we could help future generations better understand and appreciate our wondrous city, both the part preserved in stone and the part recorded on paper.”

His vision of bringing together artists from different generations, cultural backgrounds and artistic traditions remains central to Splitgraphic’s work and its continued development.