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A CENTENNIAL OF BIRTH OF PAINTER MILENA PAVLOVIC BARILI 21.05.2009. This year we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of famous Serbian artist and painter Milena Pavlović Barili. The centennial will be observed with a magnificent and representative exhibition of her works of art in the Serbian Academy of Arts’ Gallery in Belgrade and her paintings will then be exhibited all over Serbia and abroad. More from Milena Gluvačević. Curious, attractive, charming, handsome, with a lively spirit, a deep alto voice, dark and tall, always in motion in the photographs, sometimes in costume and always elegant, extravagant, in golden high-heeled sandals, holding a cigarette – thus was Milena Pavlovic Barili described by the admirers of her art opus. She was one of the most interesting personalities of artistic Europe between the two world wars. A series of activities will be organized on this occasion – above all, a conference on her works and the publication of a monograph. Special attention will be focused on her literary work and activities in the domain of visual art inspired by her work have been planned as well. Milena Pavlović Barili is the most significant representative of surrealism in Serbian painting. She was born in Pozarevac, in central Serbia, on 5 November 1909, as the only child of Danica Pavlović and Italian composer, music critic, poet and travel writer Bruno Barilli. She was educated as an artist first in the Belgrade Art School and pursued further studies in Munich. The most significant part of her opus was created outside Serbia, which Milena left in the early spring of 1930. Throughout that decade, she was connected with her life and art with West European cities – London, Paris and Rome, where she made friends and exhibited her works with the most distinguished representatives of European avantgarde art. She created more than 300 works and numerous sketches and drawings. Most of her works are housed today in the Pozarevac Museum, the Museum of Modern Art and the National Museum in Belgrade and in Rome. She wrote poetry as well, with recognizable elements of painting. In March 1940, in New York, she wrote down the following verses: You are a wave that soars high, searching for stars in the sky. In the USA, she was also engaged in commercial design, above all as an illustrator of fashion journals and those specializing in design. According to art critics, her works are magical and come from „the other side“. Such a sensation became even deeper in her paintings exhibited in April 1932 in a Parisian gallery and were to be definitely shaped during the subsequent months in Italy, in October the same year. Opening the Roman art season, an exhibition of her works was praised by the most eminent art critics from Rome and Paris. On her artistic course, she first met German artists and also painter Giorgio de Chirico, who exerted an influence on her work (parts of her canvasses remaining uncovered). Her symbols ranged between dream and reality – graceful feminine characters, veils, winged young men on stools, ancient columns, armless Venuses, Harlequins, busts, fans, birds... Her work conveys a certain message by celebrating ancient mythology. Legend has it that Dodona bells on oak trees, in Zeus’ shrine in Epirus, served as an oracle when sounding. We seem to be constantly listening to this incessant sounding through Milena’s melancholy paintings. She tragically died on 6 March 1945 in New York, after falling off a horse.
