Anton Zoran Mušič
1909 – 2005
Zoran Music is a painter, draftsman, and printmaker of Slovenian and Italian nationality, and a major figure of the New School of Paris.
Biography
Anton Zoran Mušič is a unique and poignant figure in 20th-century art. Educated at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, his life was brutally interrupted in 1944 when he was arrested in Venice for suspected resistance activities and deported to the Dachau concentration camp. There, risking his life, he secretly produced nearly two hundred drawings on scraps of paper, bearing witness to humanity in the face of absolute horror.
After the war, Mušič divided his time between Venice and Paris. Initially, his work turned toward dreamlike, peaceful subjects: the arid landscapes of his native Dalmatia, small horses, and the hills of Umbria, all rendered in muted, earthy, and ocher tones. However, in 1970, the trauma of the camps re-emerged forcefully in his most famous cycle: “We Are Not the Last” (Nous ne sommes pas les derniers). This series of paintings and etchings, depicting piles of corpses and screaming faces, is widely considered one of the most powerful artistic testaments to the Holocaust. In his later years, he focused on atmospheric, hazy views of Venice and deeply introspective self-portraits.
“The only important thing is the reality that you carry within you. You cannot use foreign realities.”
