Petar Omčikus


Petar Omčikus was a Serbian painter and member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, who lived and worked in Paris, France.

Biography

Since 1937, Omčikus lived in Belgrade. After World War II, he began painting at the Academy of Fine Arts, in class of professor Ivan Tabaković. Together with his wife, painter Kossa Bokchan, left his studies in painting and went to Zadar, which became one of the founders of the Zadar Group, where they are also Mića Popović, Vera Božičković, Bata Mihailović, Ljubinka Jovanovic. After a six-month stay in Zadar, he returned to Belgrade where he joined the Group of Eleven, and his first solo exhibition, hosted in 1951. Shortly, after in 1952, Petar Omčikus and Kossa Bokshan left from Yugoslavia and definitely moved to Paris. Since 1965, they occasionally stayed in Vela Luka on Korčula, where they organized numerous international meetings of artists, philosophers and critics. He participated in numerous group exhibitions at home and abroad.

Art

The beginnings of Omčikus creativity are related to several artists, all from the class of Ivana Tabaković, which is a few months together in Zadar 1947 making the first Yugoslav artistic commune – Zadar Group: Omčikus, his future wife Kossa Bokchan, Mića Popović, Vera Božičković, Bata Mihailović, Ljubinka Jovanović, Mileta Andrejević, Bora Grujić and their friend, student of literature Borislav Mihajlović Mihiz. Rise of the academic nature in the studio for the artists opened up new paths in which are free creativity will, in different ways, to remain during the whole of his creation. Omčikus in the 1951 joins The Group of Eleven who encourages him to continue searching for their own creative paths, then still in the domain of poetic figuration after socialist realism. But the real turning point in his art happened in Paris. Meeting with the abstract art of the time definitely Omčikus directed towards free expression, a move that he is not looking for reality but for individual style. Geometrized associative abstraction of the period but from the beginning of the seventh decade evolved into colorful gestural figuration, which has retained elements of his earlier term. In the later stages of the Omčikus thematisation painting on the portraits, drawings of Belgrade, fantastic realism, and sculpture.

Solo exhibitions (international selection)