Tina Morpurgo
Tina Morpurgo was a notable Croatian painter from Split.
Morpurgo was born on March 6, 1907 in Split to the notable Jewish Morpurgo family which originated from Marburg, Germany. After high school she devoted herself to painting and in 1931 she held her first single exhibition which showed over fifty of her works in oil, tempera and drawing. In 1932, Morpurgo attended a private school in Trieste. Morpurgo planned to pursue her schooling and further artistic development in Munich, but due to the rise of Nazism and the economic crisis, she remained in her hometown, and, disillusioned, stopped painting. In 1943 she was deported to the Banjica concentration camp together with her parents. On June 1, 1944, Morpurgo was killed by Schutzstaffel members. Despite this well-known fact, during the time of communist Yugoslavia she was falsely put on the list of the Jasenovac concentration camp victims killed by Ustaše as a part of communist anti-Croatian propaganda. This false information was also accepted by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum during a massive unchecked import of data. Her paintings were saved by the surviving members of her family and friends. Later her paintings were exhibited, in 1974, at the Jewish community of Split, at the Jewish community Belgrade, and the Jewish Historical Museum in Belgrade in 1975.
