Bruno Stern Zupan
Born 1939
Mr. Bruno Stern Zupan was born June 21, 1939 in Trboulje,
Yugoslavia. After intense training in commercial and fine art,
he was graduated from the Art Institute in Zagreb, the cultural
center of Southeastern Europe. In 1961 he left Yugoslavia to
continue his art education in Paris.
The three years he spent in Paris were at the same time difficult
and rewarding. During this period his individual style of
painting was firmly established. After constant
experimentation he derived a technique which consists of a heavily
textured background in rich color accented by a fine sketch.
His inspiration comes from two sources: the French School and
nostalgia for his homeland. He was the close friend and
associate of many important French artists such as David Tusinski,
Severini, and Paolo Polimeno. In 1964 he made the acquaintance
of an American connoisseur of art, Mr. Max Perl, who has since
sponsored him in the United States. With the help of Mr. Perl
he has become known in many New York galleries. Mr. Perl
attended the opening of the exhibit.
Mr. Zupan's deep love for nature and people makes him fearful of war
and suspicious of too much civilization. However, he accepts
the realities of contemporary life in his paintings. he wishes
to be an honest spokesman for his generation without abandoning his
respect for antiquity. He finds great beauty in Egyptian,
Macedonian, and Byzantine frescoes. His style is a compromise
between the very old and the very new conceptions of form and
design.
Mr. Zupan has held exhibitions in Zurich, Grois de Roi, Paris and
Boston as well as the Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia, South
Carolina, and the Greenville Museum of Art in South Carolina.
He was honored with a one-man exhibition in the Ecole de Paris
Gallery in New York.
The word "palampore" means a printed or painted wall-hanging that
was first seen in the fourteenth century in the region of Palampore,
India. These richly colored cotton tapestries became extremely
popular in Renaissance Europe and the few remaining examples are
carefully preserved in fine museums.
Bruno S. Zupan is a firmly established painter with a far ranging
international reputation. He has spent his life in pursuit of
quality in art and living and has divided his time between Paris,
Mallorca, Venice and the United States.
Mr. Ralph Hoisington, had developed a new method for silk screen
printing which actually carried the technique back to its origin:
the palampore technique of writing onto fabric. Mr. Zupan met
Mr. Hoisington through a mutual friend, a high official with Dan
River Mills, located in South Carolina. Mr. Zupan, a highly
trained graphic artist, at once became aware of the possibilities of
this medium.
Mr. Zupan has worked with Converse Studios to make the screens for
each color of each serigraph with absolutely no machine interference
of any sort. He separates the colors of his highly complex
drawings by tracing each one out on acetate film, and then he uses a
light sensitive emulsion to transfer that color to the silk screen
frame. It is an excruciatingly lengthy process requiring up to
200 hours per image. Mr. Zupan mixes the inks and supervises
the printing of the artist's proofs before production is begun. As
many as eleven color screens are used in a single print.
The serigraph is a palampore because it is fabric. It can be
framed in a traditional manner, sandwiched between two pieces of
plexiglass, or simply hung on the wall as it is...as the Renaissance
Europeans did. After printing is completed, each serigraph is
carefully cut and hand finished with an attractive border which
emphasizes the contrast between the fineness of the silk and the
rough cotton canvas backing.
Mr. Zupan has prepared a portfolio of ten large images (28x32
inches) and several smaller ones (14x16 inches) loosely related in a
mythological context. His monumental "Trojan Horse" and
"Temple of Heroes" speak out against war and man's vain efforts to
attain immortality. The sensuous and romantic "Wedding Couple"
reflects memories of his childhood in Yugoslavia, as does the "Four
Seasons". His "Voyage to Venice" and "Flying Island" are
invitations to freedom and discovery. the "Two Birds in
Spring" is a tribute to the richness and profound attraction of
nature...of spring itself and rebirth. The "Mediterranean
Island" is a symbol of continuing human existence...agrarian,
peaceful, unaggressive. The whole portfolio is a statement for
love, simplicity and the peaceful integration of human
relationships.
Bruno Stern Zupan was inducted into the Societe des
Artistes Francais in July of 1976. Zupan is one of the few artists
in the world who is a member of both the National Academy in the United
States and the French academy.
From - Source Unknown