Ana Vidjen


Ana Vidjen is a Yugoslav, Croatian and Serbian sculptress. She obtained her M.A. in sculpture in 1962 at Athens School of Fine Arts, and was encouraged in her chosen field by the Greek feminist poetess and writer Eleni Vakalo as well as the painter Milo Milunovic, who founded the Academy of Fine Arts in 1937. Her work includes sculptures in stone, wood and bronze, drawings, paintings and ceramics.
She and her husband, Nikola Milunovic, realised a large scale monument for the victims of Nazi terror at Banjica concentration camp in Belgrade, Serbia. Their son is the painter Mihael Milunović.

Early life and education

Vidjen was born in Pločice, a small town in Konavli Dubrovnik countryside in Croatia then Kingdom of Yugoslavia, to Ivan Vidjen and Ana Kovačević. Her father was a supervisor on tracing and laying down the south-east railways of Austria-Hungary, prior to World War I. When Ana, the youngest child, was born, her father was a railway station master of Pločice train station, and her mother a housewife with an artistic gift. She grew up in Cavtat together with her sister and her two brothers. She spent most of her childhood time playing in woods, and in the nature, collecting shells and stones. Her creative abilities were clearly visible at her early age through her drawings and her observations of nature. She had nine years when Second World War begun, and she will never forget those difficult years under Italian and German occupation. After the Liberation, her open minded family, encouraged her to pass the exam and enroll into the famous Art High School - Umjetnička Škola in Herceg Novi, Montenegro at the age of 15. After completing her studies in the sculpture class of professors Vojislav Vojo Stanić and prof. Poček, she enters in 1954 at then Academy of Fine Arts today University of Arts in Belgrade, and moves to Belgrade. By 1961, she had received a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in Fine Arts from that institution.

Period 1962-1974

Ana Vidjen obtains in 1961 a Yugoslav State Scholarship and go to pursue her M.A. studies in Athens, Greece, on Academy of Fine Arts in class of professors Michael Tombros and George Zongolopoulos. Her direct contact with rich classical Greek culture, its temples, sculptures, and museums, will leave an imperishable impact on Ana Vidjen. She was fascinated with Cycladic art sculptures and Archaic Greek forms. She dwelled in the artistic and intellectual circles of Athens of that time, and met and befriended with many artists, writers, and composers. One of her closest friends was a famous feminist art critic, poetess and writer Eleni Vakalo. Vakalo wrote several major texts on work of Ana Vidjen, and published articles in "Ta Nea" newspaper. Then Ambassador of Yugoslavia to Greece Peko Dapčević was very fond of art of Ana Vidjen and introduced her in Athenian hi-society circles.
On her return to Yugoslavia she marries Nikola Milunović, sculptor, son of prominent painter a strong figure of Yugoslav Art Milo Milunović, founder of University of Arts in Belgrade in 1937 under regency of Prince Paul of Yugoslavia. The couple settles in a fancy Belgrade neighbourhood of Dedinje in Milunović family villa in Tolstojeva street Nr.9. They start working together on many projects, but also working on realisation of large-scale mosaic projects of her father in law, Milo Milunovic.
In 1963, Ana Vidjen was invited, as one of the most talented and rising young Yugoslav artists to attend the reception given by the British Ambassador to Yugoslavia on occasion of the first official visit of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh to Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia attended also by the president Josip Broz Tito and his wife Jovanka Broz. Meeting the Royal Couple gave way to acquisition of one her sculptures for the contemporary art section of Royal Collection in Buckingham Palace, London.
In 1966 she participates in show "Fantastica" in Brussels, with a number of her new drawings. The end of 1950’s and beginning of 1960's in Yugoslav artistic circles marked a informal artistic movement called "Medijala", that Ana Vidjen embraces in treating of her figurative works, both drawings and sculptures. Also she made a very noted appearance in the International Sculpture Exhibition in den Hague de same year that next year, 1967 gave way for her selection in the exhibition "Four Yugoslav Sculptors" in Galerie D'Ent in Amsterdam. The same year she realised "Dry Age", marble sculpture, that is on permanent display in sculpture park in Arandjelovac, Serbia. She realises some of her major sculptural works then, like monumental "Shell", and also the Monument to Victims of Banjica Concentration Camp in Belgrade in 1969.

Period 1974-2019

Her "Flourishing Form", realised in 1975, was purchased and is in the collection of Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade. "The Fruit" is another astonishing sculpture realised in marble, that is actually part of sculpture park in Danilovgrad, Montenegro.
She won in that period several major national art prizes, such as Union of Fine Artists of Serbia prize in 1974, The Winter Salon prize in 1983 in Herceg Novi, and 1st prize for the Monument of Petar I Petrović-Njegoš. She later realised a three dimensional portrait of this XVIII century ruler of Montenegro. The monumental sculpture is placed in Danilovgrad in Montenegro.
She participates several times in Prilep Marble Sculpture Symposium, where she left a number of monumental sculptures in the sculpture park. She won twice the Grand Prix of Biennial of Miniature Art in Gornji Milanovac, as well as Production Prize at the 1992 October Salon in Belgrade.
She attended also several times International Symposium TERRA in Kikinda, where she produced a large number of large scale sculptures in terracota of whom some are now part of the Symposium permanent collection.
One of her last bigger solo exhibitions took place in ULUS Gallery in Belgrade in 2005, where large terracota sculptures were exclusively shown, along with large drawings.
She lives and works in Belgrade, Serbia.

Solo exhibitions