Bojan Šumonja - Omnibus / collective exhibition of a single author

The Art Pavilion in Zagreb some ten years back launched a series called “Environmental exhibitions of contemporary Croatian artists for the Art Pavilion”. This is a series that has won plaudits from the discipline and the general public alike, and has proved itself an excellent framework for the presentation of recent production of contemporary Croatian artists. How important and of what a high quality the series is, in other words of how many brilliant exhibitions have been put on under its aegis, is shown by the fact that several artists / exhibitions have won prizes for presentations within this series – in 2016, for example, Zoltan Novak, Zlatan Vrkljan, etc.

This year within the framework of the series we are presenting an established painter of the middle generation, Bojan Šumonja (1960). Šumonja graduated at the Venetian Art Academy in the class of Giancarlo Tramontin. He has in his richly variegated career had a large number of shows at home and abroad; this will be the first Šumonja outing in the Art Pavilion.

Bojan Šumonja

Born in Pula, October 29, 1960. He graduated from the secondary school of art in Pula, and subsequently took a degree from the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia, sculpture section, class of Giancarlo Tramontin, in 1984.

He is one of the founders of the Croatian Association of Visual Artists of Istria. He has been a member of the Croatian Association of Independent Artists (the HSZU). He has been a member of the city of Pula’s visual art council and of the visual art council of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia. He is one of the creators of the Istrian Cultural Strategy. Šumonja is a member of the art organisation ROBOT, Pula, and is artistic director of the Poola Gallery in Pula.

Bojan Šumonja has exhibited at over 200 collective and has had 100 solo exhibitions at home and abroad.

He has represented Croatia at many international projects and exhibitions.

He has won numerous prizes and commendations for his work in art and in 2007, published by HDLU Istria, a monograph on the artist’s work was published, with a text by Igor Zidić.

His works are kept in the permanent collection of the Modern Gallery, Zagreb, the holdings of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rijeka, the Local History Museum of Rovinj, the Coastal Galleries in Piran and in many regional, civic and private collections.