1934 — 2016
Ljuba Popović
A Belgrade-trained, Paris-based painter of large, meticulous, erotically charged dreamscapes — hybrid creatures, floating figures, demons and death’s-heads. Championed by the leading Surrealist writers of his day, he refused the label all his life.
Six paintings, forty years apart
17 of the 39 works catalogued here are illustrated. The rest are recorded from published sources and await a reproduction.
Eight chromatic periods
He worked in distinct colour phases, and both the estate and the 2019 retrospective organise the work along them. It remains the clearest way through.
- 1957 — 1962 Belgrade, burnt umber Human figures in airless spaces, worked in a near-monochrome burnt umber.
- 1963 — 1967 Early Paris, pink and red The palette opens into a complex, unstable range of pinks and reds.
- 1968 — 1971 Cosmic Luminous voids, dissolving bodies, and the first monumental canvases.
- 1972 — 1975 Erotic The 1972 Galerie de Seine show and what the critics called a burst of eroticism.
- 1976 — 1979 Mythic and mannerist Anamorphosis, Frazer, Laocoön — the oeuvre turns explicitly to myth.
- 1980 — 1985 Ice blue A cold, glassy blue takes over; the science-fiction undertone sharpens.
- 1986 — 1991 Blue romantic Watery fantastic landscapes; lakes, mountains, drifting architecture.
- 1992 — 2016 Black romanticism The war years darken the work; late canvases turn macabre and self-addressed.
Paintings have a destiny of their own, which cannot be changed — what’s more, it is illusory to even think about it. The only thing that matters is that enchanting energy emanating from them.
Most recent
The 2019 retrospective at the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts drew 57,350 visitors — by far the most-attended showing of his work in either country.
From October 2024
Parisian Ascension, 1963—1983 ARTE Gallery, Belgrade
Retrospective Marking his ninetieth birthday, accompanied by a new monograph and the first volume of the catalogue raisonné.
2020
Ljuba — Canvas without easel Modern Gallery Valjevo, Valjevo
Retrospective