Ida Ćirić


Ida Ćirić was a notable Serbian illustrator for children.
Except for illustration, the fields of her interest were book design, collage and papier-mache objects. She illustrated more than 50 books, and numerous book covers and magazine illustrations. Won 12 important Yugoslav national awards for illustration. Performed six one-man exhibitions.

Biography

Her father Svetislav Vučković was an engineer and before the 2nd World War one of the leaders of the Slavic "Falcon" gymnastic movement. Mother Slavka was professor of gymnastic. Her older brother dr Vladan Vučković was an engineer, a professor at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Belgrade, an excellent pianist and chess problemist, and her younger brother was Dragan Vučković traffic engineer and multiple Yugoslav champion in rally.
During the studies at the Academy of Applied Arts in Belgrade, she met her future husband Miloš Ćirić, with whom she got two sons, Rastko and Vukan. It was the beginning of the artistic Ćirić family, today having the third generation of professional art creators.
Upon graduation, Ida and Miloš Ćirić work and exhibit together. Ida specialized in children's illustration, which she will cherish incessantly for the next thirty years, up to the end of the 1980s, marking the whole period with her characteristic stylization of figures and rich color. Art historian Vesna Lakićević Pavićević, the specialist for Serbian illustration, says: "Ida Ćirić, during the four decades, worked as an illustrator and reached the results without which one can not make the real picture about the development of Serbian illustration of the second half of the Twentieth century."
Ida's simplified and optimistic illustrations for children, full of bright colours, raised the generations of children. She had used art techniques as colour markers, coloured inks, which enabled an intensive colour scale and joyful emotive charge. Her black and white illustrations have legible and strong graphism, "which does not fall behind the Miloš's in their energy".
Only on Ida's posthumous retrospective exhibition, at the Museum of Applied Art in Belgrade, in 2009, her rich opus could be overviewed in its diversity of genres, art approaches, techniques.

Important illustrated books and picture books

Zdrav podmladak, 1956–1957 and 1962–1963; Poletarac, 1960; Poletarac ; Pionieri, Novi Sad, 1985–1986; Mali neven , Novi Sad, 1982–1983.

Applied illustration

She realized design for postage stamps, scenographies for the cartoon film "Adventure", illustrations for the TV shows, calendars, greeting cards, posters, slide stories, unicate diplomas, record covers. She designed the lay-out and printing preparations of many books she illustrated.
She created a series of collage pictures which she called "a children room illustrations", a series of colour figures made of plastic, 1979–1980; "wall pockets" (combination of linocut and colour markers on a sewed textile, 1981; design of unicate dress, 1981–1983; papier-mâché objects and lamp shades …

Solo exhibitions

  1. Ida & Miloš Ćirić, illustrations and graphic prints, Gallery of the "Đuro Salaj" Workers Education Centre, Belgrade, 17–27 November 1961
  2. Ida & Miloš Ćirić, illustrations and logos, "Graphic Collective" Gallery, Belgrade, 1–10. October 1965
  3. Ida & Miloš Ćirić, illustrations and graphic prints, Centre for Culture and Informations, Skoplje, 21–31 January 1972
  4. Ida Ćirić, Illustrations, Salon of the Museum of Applied Arts, Belgrade, 7 November – 6 December 1979
  5. Ida Ćirić, Jelena Kršić, Mirjana Kuruzović, illustrations, "Kaštil" Gallery, Bol on island Brač, 5–14 August 1981
  6. A Collection of hand-made painted table lampshades, "Reka" Restaurant, Zemun, 1998
  7. Ida Ćirić, Illustrations, posthumous retrospective exhibition, Museum of Applied Arts, Belgrade, 12 February – 10 March 2009

    Awards