Menci Clement Crncic - Buy or sell works
3 April 1865, Bruck an der Mur (Austria) - 9 November 1930, Zagreb (Croatia)
Menci Clement Crncic was an Austrian painter, printmaker, teacher and museum director who specialised in depictions of coastal landscapes, and who was one of the founders of the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb.
In 1882, after his initial training in the military, he decided to study painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. In 1889 he attended Nicolaus Gysis’ painting class at the Academy in Munich. After an intermediate stay in Zagreb, where he worked as a teacher, Crncic returned to Vienna after being awarded a grant, which enabled him to study the arts of copperplate engraving, etching and woodcut engraving with Wiliam Unger. During this time, he sometimes lived with his professor’s family in Lovran, where he painted the first of his famous coastal landscapes. After completing his studies, Crncic began to exhibit his works in various European cities, both alone and together with other Croatian artists. Throughout his life, he undertook many journeys across the whole of Europe in the company of his fellow artists. In 1906, he and Bela Čikoš Sesija opened the first private art school in Zagreb, which is now is the Academy of Fine Arts. In the same year, he was personally awarded a grant by the Emperor, illustrating how revered and loved his depictions of coastal scenes were in the Hapsburg Empire. In 1920 he became the President of the National Academy in Zagreb for eight years. His paintings are characterised by a bright, powerful treatment of colour and recall stylistic movements such as impressionism and and pointillism.
On 19 October 2010, his 1906 painting Coastal Landscape was acquired for a total of €75,000 at a Dorotheum auction.