Ivan Meštrović, Croatia's Most Famous Sculptor, and the Works That Defined Him

Ivan Meštrović's Vestalka (Vestal Virgin), carved around 1917, is held at the Meštrović Galerija in Split, Croatia — an earthy, tranquil figure drawing on mythology and simplified Art Deco and Art Nouveau forms. Born in 1883 in Dalmatia, Meštrović began copying ancient sculptures as a youth and enrolled at 17 in Vienna Academy's sculpture program. His first solo exhibition came at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 1915, where he was hailed as the 'greatest sculptor since the Renaissance.' Contemplation (1924), carved in Carrara marble, used his second wife Olga Meštrović as model. Old Woman (1908) and a 1908 plaster of Serbian Knight Miloš Obilić — made in Paris for the unfinished Kosovo Temple in Belgrade — show his stylistic range. Imprisoned during World War II after refusing to meet Hitler, he left in 1946 and taught at Syracuse and Notre Dame. He died in 1962 in South Bend, Indiana; his remains were returned to his Croatian hometown.