Živorad Nastasijević

Živorad Nastasijević was one of the prominent Serbian painters in the period between the two world wars. He was a member of several art associations, and in 1927 he was one of the initiators and initiators of the Zograf group. He advocated the formation of a national style in art that would be based on the restoration of the medieval heritage. In the first period of his creativity, he painted landscapes and mythological scenes, and later he executed several important iconostases and engaged in fresco painting.

He graduated from the School of Arts and Crafts in Belgrade in 1911. He continued his studies in Munich in 1913-14. He participated first as a fighter in the First World War until 1917, and then as a war painter of the Supreme Command. 1920-1922. he stayed in Paris and worked at the Grande Chaumiere Academy under Professor Castalucci.

1920-21. he was a member of Lada.

1923. Member of the Group of Six: Bijelić, Dobrović, Kršinić, Nastasijević, Rosandić, Stojanović.

1924 member of the Group of Four. Dobrović, Bijelić, Miličić, Nastasijević.

In 1927, one of the founders of the Zograf group.

From 1936, he again became a member of Lada, in whose ranks he remained until his death.

During his studies, he exhibited at the Art and Craft School exhibitions. After completing his studies, he exhibited for the first time in 1912 at the Fourth Yugoslav Exhibition.

At the beginning of his artistic formation, he was in the circle of painters gathered around Kosta Miličević, and in that part of his oeuvre the influence of impressionism can be noticed. After going to Paris, where he became acquainted with museum art and the works of old masters, he turned to painting empty, abandoned Belgrade landscapes, which in their atmosphere resemble magical realism, as well as mythological motifs.

In 1927, together with Vas Pomorišac, he was the initiator and initiator of the artistic group Zograf, which was supposed to represent a kind of opposition to the progressive and modernist-oriented group Oblik. The artists who were members of Zograf advocated for the affirmation of medieval art and the building of a national style based on the medieval heritage.

Živorad Nastasijević was engaged in, among other things, fresco painting and icon painting. He painted the frescoes in the building of the Art Pavilion in Belgrade (which were destroyed during the Second World War), the iconostasis of the Church of the Shroud of the Virgin in Belgrade, the frescoes in the hall of the National Bank building in Skopje, the frescoes in the boardroom of the Belgrade Municipality, the frescoes in the Church of the Assumption in Pancevo, frescoes in the Kosturnica church in Krupnje, frescoes in several family chapels at the New Cemetery in Belgrade.

He died in Belgrade in 1966.