19 Facts About Ferdinand Kulmer

Ferdinand Kulmer was a Croatian abstract painter and teacher.

Ferdinand Kulmer's paintings tend towards abstract or semi-abstract scenes, with his early compositions based on still life or interiors featuring calligraphic brushwork.

Ferdinand Kulmer developed a more heavily textured style, turning later to a looser, more gestural style with mythical themes that includes dancing calligraphic shapes.

Ferdinand Kulmer designed costumes for two films by Vatroslav Mimica and Veljko Bulajic.

In 1990, Ferdinand Kulmer received the Vladimir Nazor Award for lifetime achievement in the visual arts.

Ferdinand Kulmer was born 29 January 1925 in Cap Martin in the south of France, where his parents were spending the winter.

The Ferdinand Kulmer family was aristocratic, old Croatian nobility that had been prominent in the political circles of Zagreb during the rule of Austria-Hungary, and included the well-known 19th century lawyer and politician Baron Franjo Ferdinand Kulmer.

Young Ferdinand Kulmer spent a comfortable childhood on a number of family estates and residences, schooled by private tutor.

When Ferdinand Kulmer was 13, he travelled extensively with his father around the Mediterranean, and the following year to the United States.

In 1942, Ferdinand Kulmer enrolled in the Budapest Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied under the Hungarian painter Rezso Zsombolya-Burghardt.

Ferdinand Kulmer retreated to his apartment in the Upper Town of Zagreb, part of the family palace on Catherine square.

From 1950 to 1957, Ferdinand Kulmer worked in the studio of Krsto Hegedusic.

On his return to Zagreb, Ferdinand Kulmer conveyed these new ideas to the local artist community.

In 1961, Ferdinand Kulmer was appointed assistant to Hegedusic at the Academy of Fine Arts, becoming a full professor in 1969.

In 1961, Ferdinand Kulmer held his first solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb.

Ferdinand Kulmer was a member of the artist group March, and joined Gallery Forum in 1969.

Ferdinand Kulmer participated in the Paris exhibition Galerie d'art international in 1979.

Ferdinand Kulmer's work has been described as "eclectic", and he was certainly one of the artists that continued to evolve in new directions as time went on.

Ferdinand Kulmer's work is marked by strong, very real surface texture, almost tactile, combined with rich, complex tonal colour.