The Modern Art Collection (before 1950) with 19th-Century Artworks includes particularly valuable and seminal works by some of the best Croatian artists. Stylistic changes that occurred during the 19th century, from Classicism and Biedermeier to Romanticism and further to Realism, are represented by the portraiture painting of Juraj Pavlović and Ivan Skvarčina, sculptures of Ivan Rendić, and paintings made in the spirit of Academicism and Historicism by Vlaho Bukovac and Mato Celestin Medović. A special segment of the collection consists of a larger number of works by the leading artists of Croatian Modernism, the most prominent being Bukovac with 15 and Medović with 24 artworks. Works of Vlaho Bukovac from the period 1884-1885, produced in Split, mark the very beginning of Croatian Modern art.

Another prominent artist in terms of number and quality of artworks is Emanuel Vidović with more than 45 paintings and drawings, most of them seminal, as well as 12 rare caricatures. The collection also includes sculptures by Ivan Meštrović and Branislav Dešković, drawings by Miroslav Kraljević and Vilko Gecan, and paintings by Marino Tartaglia, Ljubo Babić, Sava Šumanović, Ignjat Job, Juraj Plančić, Jerolim Miša, and others. A particularly valuable segment consists of works by internationally renowned foreign artists such as Egon Schiele and Georg Grosz.

Curator: Iris Slade, museum consultant