Biography of Boža Ilić

Boža Ilić is important Yugoslavian painter of the second part of 20th century. He graduated form Academy of Arts in Belgrade in class of Milo Milunovic. He have been considered a leading social-realism artist after WWII. He have had a lot of publicity and the related exposure to be both venerated and criticized due to the political situation, as social realism declined through the 1950's. However, through both popularity and shunning Ilic keeps his own sensibility in his work and keeps away from the harsh politics. Nature of the situation forced him to move from monumental sized works to ordinarily sized canvas, but he kept all the power emanating from his works untouched.However, politics do bring him poverty and "blacklisted" name, so he supports his family by making violins (these are still in high esteem today). So his work can be split in two periods. Romantic one with many monumental works and later expressionist smaller but very bold and colorful works. He died in 1993. leaving behind huge number of paintings both in homeland and abroad. (Translation of Slavica Stevanovic commentary from 1996.)