Kauzlarić Atač Zlatko – Toni Franović – 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 an associate of Professor K. Hegedušić’s master workshop. In 1973, he became an assistant at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, where he currently works as a full professor and was dean for a time. Alongside painting and graphics, he has intensely engaged in scenography and costume design, collaborating on about a hundred theatre projects domestically and internationally, as well as on several film and television productions. 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 merits in culture. Atačevo’s existence in the fields of painting has been marked by works — the earliest created during his involvement with the group “Biafra” (from 1970), expressive portraits of famous personalities, nudes, and numerous self-nudes. From the very beginning, the author has inherited a sense for the expression of the moment, rhythm, movement, and a characteristic artistic engagement. His current painting preoccupation is nudes immersed in water, where drawing is replaced by the dominance of pure painterly treatment of the surface with color, revealing all the virtuosity of a master who does not suppress expression with figurative phrasing.