Kauzlarić Atač Zlatko – Vito Portrait

He was born in 1945 in Koprivnica. After finishing high school, he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. During his studies, he became involved in the work of the Student Experimental Theatre. He graduated in the class of Professor Miljenko Stančić and immediately became a collaborator in the master workshop of Professor K. Hegedušić, and in 1973 he became an assistant at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, where he still works as a full professor and for a time served as dean. Alongside painting and graphic art, he intensively worked in scenography and costume design, collaborating on about a hundred theatre projects both domestically and abroad, as well as several film and television projects. He is also the author of several visual interventions in public spaces. In 1996, a monograph signed by Tonko Maroević was published about him. He has received numerous awards for painting and scenography, as well as the Order of Danica for merit in culture. Atac’s existence in the field of painting is marked by works—the first created during his activities within the group ‘Biafra’ (from 1970), portraits of famous people in expressive motion, nudes, and numerous self-nudes. From the very beginning, the author has embraced a sense of expression of the moment, rhythm, movement, and characteristic artistic engagement. His current painting preoccupation are nudes immersed in water, in which drawing is replaced by the dominance of pure painterly treatment of the surface with color, revealing the virtuosity of a master who does not suppress expression by figurative expression.