Emanuel Vidović
The beginning of the gallery, dedicated to the life and work of Emanuel Vidović, dates far back to the year 1953. After the painter’s death and his posthumous exhibition held in the same year in Split, local intellectuals proposed that the paintings be bought from the family for a future gallery in the hometown of this master of Croatian art. The proposal was put on hold for many years, as it was difficult to find a space adequate for the storage, conservation and exhibition of the artist’s legacy.
Amongst those most determined to find a gallery space was the artist’s family who, for many years, turned down offers for the sale of paintings, hoping that one day they would be placed in a museum in the town Vidović loved so well. Their patience was rewarded when in 1986 all the paintings were bought at half their actual value for to the Split City Museum’s Emanuel Vidović Gallery. The sales contract for the paintings and the terms of donation of the artist’s studio were signed after the City of Split, owner and founder of the Museum, promised financial support for the new gallery space. Vidović’s heirs also donated the inventory of the artist’s studio in which he worked in the last years of his life (1942-1953).