Artist of the Day, October 20, 2025 : Sava Šumanović, a Serbian painter (#2396)

 Sava Šumanović (1896 –1942) was a Serbian painter. He is considered to be one of the most important Serbian painters of the 20th century. Šumanović's opus includes around 800 paintings as well as 400 drawings and sketches. He was executed during the mass genocide of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia. 

Sava Šumanović was born in Vinkovci, Austria-Hungary (now in Croatia), the only child of mother Persida Šumanović and father Milutin Šumanović, who worked as an engineer. When Šumanović was four years old his family moved to Šid (modern-day Serbia). He graduated Zemun Gymnasium, where he was first introduced to the art of painting and the work of artists like Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cézanne. He later enrolled in the College of Crafts and Arts in Zagreb and soon after he lived in Paris for several years, since 1920. His professor in Paris was André Lhote. Šumanović befriended Amedeo Modigliani, Max Jacob and various Paris-based Serbian artists and writers such as Rastko Petrović.

Living for a couple of years in Croatia, Šumanović returned to Paris in late 1925, and stayed again for several years, accepting certain influences of the Matisse painting style. In 1927 he produced some of his best known works, including Pijana ladja (Drunken boat) and Doručak na travi (Luncheon on the grass). Šumanović returned to Šid in 1928 and after another year spent in Paris, eventually settled there in 1930. His major exhibition was at the Belgrade New University in 1939, where he exposed roughly 410 paintings mostly from the Šid period. It was his first major success after many years. He lived quietly in Šid until the outbreak of World War II in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in April 1941, when the Nazi puppet state Independent State of Croatia, led by the Croatian fascist Ustaše, occupied Syrmia and began a genocide campaign against Serbs, Jews, and Romani people.

When the Independent State of Croatia upon its establishment banned usage of Serbian Cyrillic, Šumanović stopped signing pictures and only put the year. Ustaše police arrested Šumanović together with 150 Serbian citizens and took them to a concentration camp in Hrvatska Mitrovica (today Sremska Mitrovica). Šumanović was executed there together with many other Serbs and buried in a common grave in a Serbian Orthodox graveyard.

His early artistic style was characterized by various influences, mainly Cubism but Fauvism and Expressionism as well. In his later works, Sava Šumanović managed to develop his own, rather original artistic expression, which he simply called "the way I know and can." Due to innovations and unique style, Šumanović can be described as one of the most prominent Serbian painters of the twentieth century as well as a major painter from the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

A gallery devoted to Šumanović's work was established in 1952 based on a gift from Persida Šumanović, the painter's mother. The legacy of 417 works of art, out of which 356 are oil paintings is located in the Šumanović family home. In 1989 the building was renovated and the original exhibition area was expanded from 400 to 600 m2 (4,300 to 6,500 sq ft). This enabled a large number of paintings to be exhibited simultaneously. The main activity of the gallery is the preservation and presentation of paintings obtained as gifts. In addition to this, a rich collection of documentary materials has been amassed, as well as an extraordinarily rich Hermoteca (newspaper and periodical library), containing the catalogues from all the exhibitions held until now.

He is included in The 100 most prominent Serbs list. 

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 Sava Šumanović

Iločki drum zimi,  c. 1942

Motif from Fontenay,  c. 1940

Model in the Studio, c. 1939

Kissing under the Moonlight,  c. 1939

Elm,  c. 1939

Portret  Devojcice,  c. 1939

Šid under Snow,  c. 1936

Ženski akt u crvenoj fotelji,  c. 1934

Women's Act of Head Blank,  c. 1934

Untitled,  c. 1934

Semi-laying female act on the divana,  c. 1934

Proleće u šidskim baštama,  c. 1934

Pred proleće,  c. 1934

Half-lying female nude on the couch,  c. 1934

Women's Acting,  c. 1932-34

Standing Women's Act,  c. 1932

Seoska kuća,  c. 1932

Paris bar,  c. 1929

Morning. c,  1929

Adlode from the vicinity of Paris,  c. 1929

Act in Seated Position,  c. 1929

Young Couple on a Bench in Town,  c. 1928

La Baignade des chevaux II, Sainte Anne de la Palud, c. 1928

Pijana lađa,  c. 1927

Luncheon on the Grass,  c. 1927

white vase,  c. 1926

Akt u enterijeru,  c. 1926

Selfportrait,  c. 1925

Bagpiper,  c. 1924

Paysage de Suresnes

Triptych Picker