Đuro Janeković: Sports photography

Đuro Janeković (1912-1989), a university professor, one of the first photo journalists in Croatia. He exhibited in many art photography exhibitions in Zagreb, Vienna, Munich, Buenos Aires, London, Oslo, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Debrecin, Prague, Warsaw and Sofia. Now you have the chance to visit his exhibition in your area, in the Brdovec Museum, which is situated in the building owned by his uncle Antun.
The exhibition of sports photography by Đuro Janeković from the holdings of Arts and Crafts Museum in Zagreb. The author of the exhibition Marija Tonković, Ph.D., is also the author of the retrospective exhibition about Đuro Janeković which was held in the Arts and Crafts Museum in 2009 („To experience Zagreb in the 1930s“), the exhibition which revaluated the work of this renowned Croatian photographer and photo journalist. The exhibition in Brdovec is aimed at not only presenting the work of an artist of European significance, but also at enriching knowledge about local past, about Janeković mansion, a cultural monument which houses the Brdovec Museum.

Đuro Janeković (Zagreb, 14th Oct 1912 – Osijek, 2nd May 1989) is one of the most prominent Croatian photographers and photo journalists, whose work was revaluated in a major retrospective exhibition in 2009 in the Arts and Crafts Museum in Zagreb, the museum which houses his legacy, a donation by his widow Zorica and son Đuro. An agricultural engineer by profession, he worked as a university professor, but practised photography since youth. His photographs were published in magazines and displayed in exhibitions in Zagreb and other Croatian towns, as well as abroad: in Vienna, Prague, Warsaw, Sofia, Debrecin, Munich, Amsterdam, London, Oslo, Stockholm, and Buenos Aires. He established a joined studio with Tošo Dabac, and he was a member of Zagreb Photo Club. His work includes all genres of photography: social and engaged photography, photo journalism, sports photography, photo advertising, ethnographic photographs, landscapes, and night photographs of Zagreb. Among Croatian photographers he was the one closest to the aesthetics of New Objectivity. His photographs of sporting events captured movement, as did photographs by best German photographers of the time. Janeković published numerous photographs that he took at „Sokol games“ and other sporting events. Besides photographs, the exhibition at the Brdovec Museum will present Janekovic’s sport trophies since he was also an athlete himself: a runner, ice skater and mountaineer. The exhibition at the Brdovec Museum will reveal to Brdovec public the work of a prominent artist, the nephew of a former owner of the house where the Brdovec Museum is located. About the author of the exhibition: Marija Tonković (born in Rijeka, 1949) is an art historian, a retired museum adviser, and assistant professor at the Academy of Dramatic art sin Zagreb. She earned her Master’s degree from the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb in 1994 with thesis „Juraj and Karlo Drašković in the context of Croatian photography of the 19th century“, and doctoral degree in 2012 with thesis „Photographer Franjo Mosinger in the context of the New Objectivity and the Bauhaus“. From 1978 to 2014 she worked at the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Zagreb, where she was an Old Photography collection manager and Collections Department manager. She has been working as a part-time lecturer and the first lecturer of Photography history at the Academy of Dramatic art sin Zagreb continuously since 1997. For her extraordinary contribution to museum profession she was awarded the Croatian Museum Society Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014.