Drawing And Collage, Woman In Profile, By Slavko Kopac

After studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, Slavko Kopač completed a one-year internship in Paris from 1939 to 1940, thanks to a scholarship awarded to him by the French government. Then, due to World War II, as a Croatian citizen, he was forced to return to the Independent State of Croatia, where he arrived in April 1941 after spending several weeks in Mostar, before reaching the capital to teach at the Zagreb High School until 1943.

From 1943 to 1948, he managed to travel to Italy and lived and worked in Florence. In August 1948, he settled permanently in Paris, where he met Jean Dubuffet and later became the curator of the collection of La Compagnie de l’Art Brut, of which he was one of the founders. Some of his works were initially bequeathed by Dubuffet to the Collection de l’art brut in Lausanne before Kopač himself requested their return in order to donate them to a museum in Croatia.

Work created using collages of paper torn with a ballpoint pen and ink wash. Bears the SK stamp on the back, dated September 1977.