Moma Markovich
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Moma Marković (Serbian Cyrillic: Мома Марковић; 1902 - 1977) was a Serbian Canadian artist who worked exclusively for the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario in Ottawa in the capacity of a draughtsman, from 1955 to 1970, the year he retired.
Biography[edit]
Moma Marković was born in 1912 in Belgrade, then the Kingdom of Serbia. After completing his high school education and Visoka škola in Belgrade, he went abroad and enrolled the famed École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs in Paris, graduating in 1933. His successful art career in Belgrade included designing postage stamps for the government of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, illustrating textbooks for school children and working as a freelance cartoonist for Serbian daily newspapers and magazines. Suddenly war interrupted everything and he spent the war years in a German POW camps in Austria from where he escaped[1]to Italy. After the Allied liberation, Marković refused to repatriate to his homeland, then in the clutches of Communism. In italy he devoted himself exclusively to art and soon mounted a well-received solo exhibition in Padua of his latest works. Marković was persuaded by friends that the new world would hold more promise for him an artist. He emigrated to Canada in 1951, and for the next few years Marković tried desperately to survive as a freelance artist until he entered the Canadian public service in 1955 [2]as a "junior draughtsman" where he was discovered and put to use. His paintings, however, were dictated by his employer both as to subject matter and furthermore date of completion. Moma did not disappoint his patrons: he demonstrated his great talent, superb technique, and academic training. Each and every painting of his is a work of art, reflecting his artistry and the taste of Canadians of the time. He created a series of 70 oil paintings depicting the historical development of Ontario roads and highways; another series of 30 large oil paintings portray colourful Ontario scenery and activities such as logging, trapping, fishing, recreation, and similar themes. Unfortunately, Marković's painting were never entered in an exhibition or an art show, certainly not in his lifetime, never reviewed by any art critic, and in fact never made commercially available. For the Canadian art world and the art market in general, Moma Marković the artist did not exist.
He died in 1977 at the age of 75.
It was only some four decades later that Marković's work got its due. He was posthumously honoured when the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario turned 100 in 2016, and launched "Footpaths to Freeways: The Artistry of Moma Markovich", an exhibition prepared by the Archives of Ontario in partnership with MTO, that the artwork of artist and former MTO employee came to light.[3][4]
Source[edit]
- Editors Sofija Skoric and George Vid Tomashevich: "Serbs in Ontario: A Socio-Cultural Description", Serbian Heritage Academy, Toronto, 1987, pages 230-231
- And personal recollection of the man and his work.
References[edit]
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