Kauzlarić Atač Zlatko – Swimmer 2008

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 Prof. Miljenko Stančić and immediately became an associate in the master workshop of Prof. K. Hegedušić, and in 1973 became an assistant at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, where he currently works as a full professor and was dean for a period. Alongside painting and graphic arts, he is intensively engaged in scenography and costume design, collaborating on around one hundred theater projects domestically and internationally, as well as several film and television projects. He is also the author of several visual interventions in public spaces. In 1996, a monograph was published about him, written by Tonko Maroević. He is a recipient of numerous awards for painting and scenography, and the Order of Danica for cultural merits. Atać’s existence in the fields of painting has been marked by works—first those created during his time with the group “Biafra” (since 1970), portraits of famous persons in expressive movement, nudes, and many self-nudes. From the very beginning, the author has inherited a sense for the expression of the moment, rhythm, movement, and characteristic artistic engagement. His current painting preoccupation is nudes submerged 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 representation.