Slavko Kopač, the rediscovery of an artist who trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence

The Croatian artist, who trained in Florence, returns to the city that marked his personal and creative journey

Last days to visit the exhibition Slavko Kopač. The Hidden Treasure. Informal Art, Surrealism, Art Brut, curated by Roberta Trapani and Pietro Nocita, hosted in the Exhibition Hall of the prestigious Academy of Design Arts in Florence. The exhibition, which offers a journey through the artist's most significant works, will remain open until 13 November 2025, when the exhibition's finissage will also be held, from 6 p.m. until midnight, a special opportunity to celebrate and rediscover Kopač's creative universe.

Slavko Kopac

This is the first Kopač exhibition in Florence since his 1945 solo show at Galleria Michelangelo in Via Porta Rossa, and a unique opportunity to rediscover an unparalleled body of work and a complex, enigmatic artist. Much admired by André Breton, Jean Dubuffet and Michel Tapié, Kopač effectively embodied the innovative, interdisciplinary spirit of an era of cultural rebirth from the postwar ruins.

Horses, one of the works exhibited in Florence in 1945

The exhibition revolves around two central moments: the artist’s Florentine period between 1943 and 1948, a time of war and rebuilding, during which Kopač developed a highly original expressive language that quickly earned him a place on the international art scene; and his Parisian period, when Kopač emerged as a pivotal figure at the crossroads between Surrealism, Informal Art and Art Brut – not so much as a creator of the latter, but as a strenuous defender and promotor of it.

In Paris in summer 1948 he met Jean Dubuffet, who realised the two had a similar approach to art; they collaborated closely in the Compagnie de l'Art Brut project, on which Kopač worked until the public opening of the Art Brut Collection in Lausanne in 1976. Around the same time, he came into contact with André Breton, who was deeply taken by his dreamlike, totemic imaginary world and welcomed him into his circle of Surrealists. Their meeting of minds took concrete shape in 1949 with Kopač’s illustrations of Breton’s poem Au regard des divinités, published in limited edition, hand-written by Breton and with original drawings.

Umbrella Tree 1946, Kopac

A radically independent artist, Kopač unrestrainedly explores drawing, painting and sculpture, experimenting with a vast range of materials and techniques. His constantly-shifting expressive language is born of instinctive impulses and poetic tensions, giving rise to hybrid, metamorphous forms that evoke an archaic and universal world. A journey in search of art as a primal act, unmediated. Alongside pieces by the Franco-Croatian artist, the exhibition features archive materials and works by figures who profoundly influenced his artistic development and whose careers and personal relationships are interwoven with his own.

Coinciding with the Slavko Kopač exhibition is a monographic volume offering a comprehensive and in-depth portrait of the artist Like the exhibition itself, the publication was made possible by the support of the ArtRencontre Association: Pola, Tamara and Kristijan Floričić, Maja Ivić The exhibition is organised with sponsorship by the Croatian Ministry of Culture, Regione Toscana and the Municipality of Florence, and organised and promoted by the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno, ArtRencontre and the Kopač Committee Association, in collaboration with the Museo Novecento Firenze, the Institut Français Firenze, BBS Pro and MUS.E Firenze