Review article
Tracing Anđela Horvat’s Terse Postcards – Anđela Horvat and Kruno Prijatelj
Ivana Čapeta Rakić
; Filozofski fakultet Sveučilišta u Splitu, Odsjek za povijest umjetnosti
Abstract
The Ministry of Culture’s Conservation Department in Split preserves the correspondence of the late Fellow of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts Prof. Kruno Prijatelj, which includes a white envelope containing twenty-nine postcards and several brief letters sent by
Anđela Horvat to one of the addresses of Prof. Prijatelj. The earliest preserved postcard is dated 27th December 1945, and the last was signed on 9th March 1984. The preserved collection instantly reveals that Anđela Horvat’s postcards sent to Prof. Prijatelj were rarely formal and impersonal. In her correspondence with the dear colleague she chose postcards of different visual content. The choice of visual motifs of the postcards was not just random; they were always connected to Anđela Horvat’s personal interests, mostly art-historical. She thus expressed a part of her own identity within the narrower social category to which both Croatian Academy Fellows belonged, and the vocation they both passionately lived. The majority of her postcards can be connected to illustrations in her published works. Among the preserved
material stand out several postcards with black and white photographs, whose visual characteristics, according to the author, suggest that they were taken by Anđela Horvat herself. The author fi nds proof of Anđela Horvat’s photographic skills in the texts of Kruno Prijatelj and
Branko Fučić. In her analysis of introductory lines and complimentary closes the author also discerns the relationship between the two correspondents, and concludes that their relationship developed from workfellow correct to workfellow friendly. The author divides the textual body of their correspondence into several categories, concluding that the most numerous were the ones in which Anđela Horvat asks Prof. Prijatelj for offprints or expresses her gratitude for received publications. Other categories include complimentary cards in occasion of her colleague’s recent scholarly publications or his achievements, and postcards revealing the readiness of Anđela Horvat to assist his colleague in obtaining information for his scholarly research, such as unpublished manuscripts, photographs of works of art and similar items.
Keywords
Anđela Horvat; Kruno Prijatelj; postcards
Hrčak ID:
188352
URI
Publication date:
15.12.2011.
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