... Vojin Velickovic Info ...

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Vojin Velickovic - Vojkan was born in 1914. in Belgrade. He studied Fine Arts in class of Beta Vukanovic and Ljubomir Ivanovic, and academic art class with Ivan Radovic. He was an art pedagogue, teacher, in Jagodina from 1941 until 1975. He lived in Jagodina until he passed away in 2001, in his favorite time for painting - late summer. He lived a highly productive life and produced over 1000 paintings and drawings. Even only a year or so before he died, in his late eighties, people in Jagodina could see him riding his bike with his canvases and brushes. Every ride was a lesson about art to the small town he embraced as his own.
His activity was unassuming, yet powerful. His style was always respected while at the same time it was often a topic of great arguments and even looked down on paradoxically by those who he created as artists! Even having to constantly fight his ways against contemporary styles, philosophies, so called "progressive forces in modern art" he persistently and patiently adhered to his believes, the same way  he adhered to the town vignettes, streets where he was often seen submersed in the act of painting...
From 1965. he was a member of ULUS (Highest Artistic Association in Serbia). His first group exhibition was in 1937. in the most highly respected "Cvijeta Zuzoric Pavilion". Since then, he had numerous group and solo exhibitions all over Serbia.
His work is in many private and public collections in Serbia and abroad: Paris, London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Moskva, Venice, Chicago, Cider Lake, Sherman, Philadelphia.
He commenced numerous graduate studies: Greece, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Italy, France, and was awarded many artistic awards in Serbia and his home town - Jagodina.
As per words of Dr. Miodrag Jovanovic :" Without a statement about tradition and past, we couldn't understand the art of Vojin Velickovic. His romantic love for painting old Jagodina was a part of a particular philosophy and defined life motto of our artist. Facing the old houses, in narrow streets disappearing almost before his easel, Velickovic is not colouring his canvases with pessimism and sorrow for what unavoidably evaporates. In fact, off the paintings we see brightness and optimism, quiet happiness before blooming gardens of low houses, warped fences and weathered walls.
He continues:" Velickovic's paintings are not protest placates against technocratic cockiness (of new architecture - art vrbaski  note), but, perhaps even only subconsciously, they caution us of our imprudent  urban and architectural surgery on vitality of the past."
In Vojin's paintings there is lyricism and poeticism. He is deeply humanitarian in his approach, in his love and understanding of everyday motifs. Yet, when we take a closer look of the details on his paintings, we see the depths of his poetry, the quiet but deepest love for life made of small, often overlooked elements.
This small gallery is a tribute to his art and life.