Anton Zoran Music

Anton Zoran Musič was born in Gorizia on February 12, 1909. Before entering Babič's Accademia di Belle Arti, where he was accepted in 1930, he spent some time in Vienna where he met young writers and playwrights. He finished his academic studies in 1935 and soon after, a professor who he had befriended recommended that he move to Madrid. There he studied Spanish painting, visited the Prado and Museum of Escorial. 
At the outset of Spain's Civil War, lasting from 1936-1940, Musič left Spain to return to Dalmatia. In 1941 he collaborated with Babič on an exhibit in Zagabria that featured Stupica and Simunovič (Croatian artists) who were with him at the Academy. 
During World War II, when Italy occupied both Damatia and Slovenia, Musič returned to Gorizia to care for some of his relatives. During this period he was mentored by Cernigoi, a muralist, who worked in churchs in Tolmino and Caporetto. He took his first trip to Venice in 1943, with the intention returning after a short period. During his visit, he stopped to see Trieste's Galleria Decrescenzio. While in Venice he frequented the Piccola Galleria of Roberto Nonveiller, another person who went from Dalmatia to Venice. The next year he was caught by the Gestapo in Trieste, accused of spying and deported to the Dachau camp. He lived to see the American Liberation in 1945 and soon after returned to Gorizia and Venice. He met up with Guido Cadorin, who he had met in Trieste in 1943. 
Ida Cadorin, a friend from his days in the Academy, assisted him in finding a studio in Venice. There Musič painted his first portraits and miniature horses. In 1946 Musič moved, for a few months, to Cadola, where Cadorin needed his assistance in the frescos of a church. He returned to Venice where he undertook a series of watercolor paintings at Zattere in San Marco. In 1947 the collector and merchant Pospisil placed two of his more famous works at the Palazzo Sagredo alongside other famous artists. Later, Francesco Malipiero, director of Academy of Musič “Benedetto Marcello”, gave him studio space at Palazzo Pisani. In 1948, two of his works, "Asinelli" and "Paesaggio umbro," were first exhibited at the Biannual of Venice. Irene Brin and Gaspero del Corso later presented his works at Rome's Galleria dell'Obelisco. 
Musič got to know and visited to studios and works of Kokoschka and Tobey, a frequent companion and family friend. In 1949 he installed a few murals in a private collection in Zurich. In Venice he began to use a press to print, a skill he had learned at the Academy. He participated and won the Paris Prize for painting, in Cortina, from Cultural Italian Center of Paris. He won for his work in collaboration with Antonio Corpora. In conjunction with the prize, he exhibited his own production in Paris. The exhibit took place at the Galerie de France, which spearheaded his eventual move to Paris in 1952. In 1953 and 1954 he rented a new studio in Venice near the famous Accademia. That summer he designed a lagoon near Chioggia. In Paris, Oliver Brassai had given him his studio in Montparnasse. He had his first exhibit in New York at the Cadley Birch Gallery. In 1955 he began work on his first watercolors for the atelier of Lacouriere. The same year, at London's Arthur Jeffress Gallery, he held an exhibition. He participated in the Quadannual of Rome presented at Marchiori. In 1956 he was awarded the Grand Prize for Graphics at the Biannual of Venice. He was given, in 1957 the Prize for Graphics, at the Biannual of Lublin. That summer he again designed for Dalmatia. In 1958 he exhibited at the Galerie de France under the title Terre Dalmate. In 1959 he left the atelier of Brassai and transfered to that of his friend Léon Gischia. In 1960 at the Graphics Biannual of Lublin he presented a personal exhibit and won the UNESCO Prize. 
Bruno Lorenzelli, a great antique and modern art merchant got a hold of some of Musič's works and displayed them in his gallery in Milano, Italy. Worldwide, Musič works can be seen in museums in Monaco, Jerusalem, Venice, Copenhagen, Oslo, and Høvikodden. In 1972 the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris dedicated their first major retrospective to Musič. This also represented Musič's first exhibition at a parigian museum. In 1972 and 1973, he assisted with a mosaic in Ravenna (a 30 mq. space). This mosaic now decorated the Hilton hotel in Ravenna. In Var of Southern France he designed for the “Forêt de Maures”, which is what prompted him to begin work on his series "Motivo vegetale." 
In 1988, from November to December, Lorenzelli Arte Gallery in Milan organized an important exhibit comprised of 85 pieces of oil, guaches, temper and pastels on paper from 1947 to 1980. Other exhibits took place at the Bergamini Gallery in Milan. 
Exhibits on Musič can be seen in private and public collections. These include the use of Musič's works by Lorenzelli on occasion of: Arte Fiera, Bologna, January 23-28, 2002 and January 26-31, 2006, “MIMAS. The Milano International Art Show”, Palazzo della Permanente, Milano, May 7-11, 2003 and May 6-9, 2004. 
Anton Zoran Musič passed away on May 25, 2005.