Nadežda Petrović

Nadežda Petrović was a Serbian painter and one of the women war photography pioneers in the region. Considered Serbia's most famous impressionist and fauvist, she was the most important Serbian female painter of the period. The fine art of Nadežda Petrović, our most important artist from the beginning of the century, introduces Serbian art in the courses of contemporary European art. Owing to her spirit which from small Serbia longed for the modern world and thanks to favorable circumstances that she could go to school and visit fine art centers of Europe at the beginning of the 20th century, her painting mostly kept up with European expressionism, impressionism, fauvism, and sometimes it was close to, still not famous, abstraction. In her best works of art large areas dominate as well as her favorite bright reds and complimentary green. A love for colors creates a coloration whirlpool where, apart from others, fauvist violet, blue and black are emphasized. Strong strokes of the brush, wide and thick paste applications sometimes change the canvas into a dynamic relief surface. She liked to paint portraits and landscapes, and her patriotism could be seen in a frequent choice of subjects from the national history and in picturing people and regions of Serbia.