The most important Serbian painter of the first half of the 20th century, Sava Sumanovic, spent his youth and last days of life in Šid, where his hometown gallery is located today. It was established in 1952 as a gift that enabled Persida Šumanovic, the painter’s mother, to present the town of Šid with 417 of her son’s paintings, as well as the house in which they are exhibited.

ava Šumanovic was born in 1896 into a wealthy and respected bourgeois family, in the town of Vinkovci. Soon after his birth, the family returned to Šid. The most important event in his career was certainly going to Paris at the end of the 1920s. The half year spent in the studio of the famous art professor Andre Lot, whose artistic direction was post-cubism, forever changed the life of the young artist. He became the Serbian painter who worked in a special kind of late Constructivism, much like Andre Lot – in the reflection of Cubism. All of that made Sava Šumanovic a pioneer of modern trends in Serbian painting, which became modern largely due to Šumanovic’s ability to accept and understand changes in art. Full of enthusiasm and new revelations, he experienced disappointment in 1921 at his first exhibition in Zagreb, after his return from Paris. The provincial and conservative audience in Zagreb did not understand modern art.

(Selected parts of BelGuest Magazine Article)

THE LIGHT OF SREM