HISTORY

In the year 2000, Michael Milkovich, the Director of the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, Florida introduced a 90 day exhibit titled “The Fantastical World of Croatian Naïve Art” to the United States, record crowds and rave reviews. It was there that I fell in love with Croatian Naïve oil on glass paintings. I can remember touring the exhibit of 100 paintings from 10 famous Croatian Naïve artists, stopping in front of one and saying to my wife Donna that if this particular painting was for sale for $50,000 I would seriously consider buying it! Well, after the exhibit was long gone from St. Petersburg, I decided to search for paintings to purchase to begin a small collection for Donna and myself.

Months of Internet searches turned up nothing! I mean nothing. Nothing in the US; nothing in Europe; nothing in Croatia! Nothing, that is, until I received an email from a place I didn’t even know existed, the Croatian National Museum of Naïve Art, telling me that they were having an exhibit similar to the one in St. Petersburg entitled “The Art of the Hlebine School” that would run from May 31 to August 29th in 2005.

To make a long story somewhat shorter, I made arrangements to travel to Croatia along with my son-in-law Tommy Sapp, to attend the grand opening ceremonies of the exhibit. I also arranged for a driver/interpreter (soon to become friend Vladimir Medjimorec) to drive us around Podravina (that small part of the Croatian countryside famous for these master artists) to visit as many artists as we could and perhaps purchase the paintings I was seeking for our collection.

Half way into the first day of what was to be a 4 day trip traveling the countryside looking for artists, and after having more than one masterfully done painting pulled from behind a dresser or from under a bed, I decided that this story was to important not to be brought to the United States. I was going to open a gallery as soon as I could to bring this fantastic art form from these wonderful artists to America!

Bringing this art to the West and promoting this amazing group painters (many of whom are Masters of this art form and as talented as other artists we have all come to know and respect) became a cause for me. I didn’t just want to do it. I was compelled to do it. This story needed to be told.  

I was back in Croatia, this time with Donna, for the last week of the exhibit in August 2005 and together we toured other parts of the Croatian countryside so that to this date I have met personally with and bought beautiful paintings from at least 50 of this talented group of Croatian Naïve Artists.

This brings me up to the present time where we have found our gallery location in St. Petersburg directly across the street from St. Petersburg’s Fine Arts Museum where we first saw this wonderful art form. The lease is signed and we patiently await the finishing touches on the construction of a brand new 30 story condominium tower with retail space on the ground floor to be called Parkshore Plaza Shops and scheduled to open in late September or early October of 2006. Our gallery will be called the: Croatian Naïve Art Gallery & Museum Collection.  

Finally, the long term plan (perhaps only a few years away) will be to purchase additional museum quality pieces along the way so as to eventually have what will be called the US Croatian Naïve Art Gallery & Museum.

Please remember, when you see these paintings you are witnessing something very special. These paintings are not production line prints, “artist enhanced” or “embellished” lithographs or serigraphs, giclee prints or photographs. They are unique originals, one-of-a-kind reverse oil on glass paintings never before offered like this in America.

Prior to our gallery opening paintings may be seen and further information regarding this art form may be found on our web site:www.CroatianNaiveArt.com

Thank you,
Jim & Donna Nannen

Croatian Naive Art Gallery at Glass Canvas Gallery
           146 Second St.N.        
            St. Petersburg, FL 33701
        727-821-6767
        www.CroatianNaiveArt.com
        James & Donna Nannen
        Nannen@CroatianNaiveArt.com