From 1958 until his retirement in 1995, Buljević worked as a professional photographer, first at the Urban Planning Institute of Dalmatia and later at the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments in Split. He became an exceptional photographer of Dalmatian cultural landmarks, known for his keen sense of space and form. His time at the Institute was especially beneficial, as it offered support for his photography exhibitions focused on cultural heritage. Between 1981 and 1988, in collaboration with the Institute, he held five solo exhibitions, each accompanied by a small photo monograph. Alongside his fieldwork in Dalmatia, his professional and private travels took him to various locations across Europe and Asia Minor, consistently yielding a rich photographic catch.
Living in close proximity to Diocletian’s Palace, he traversed the historic city centre daily, so it is no surprise that Split, with its rich architectural and artistic heritage, became a lasting source of inspiration for him.
A considerable portion of his photographic work, capturing both immovable and movable monuments, reflects his exceptional skill in conveying the vitality of a particular subject. His ability to transcend the primary documentary intent reveals his familiarity with the photographic oeuvre of Nenad Gattin, while his images of (almost) empty, architecturally pure urban space with a uniform rhythm (Prokurative or Dream) possess a metaphysical resonance, reminiscent of the paintings of Giorgio de Chirico.
Buljević’s permanent contact with the products of human creativity and artistry is reflected in the selection of public figures he portrayed individually. Typically, these subjects are artists and cultural personalities such as Ivan Meštrović, Ante Kaštelančić, Jakov Pavić, Vasko Lipovac, Stjepan Gunjača, and Miljenko Smoje…
During the Homeland War, in late 1991 and early 1992, he photographed Croatian defenders with deep empathy and emotional commitment, sometimes approaching the work with the eye of a photojournalist (Cap of a Fallen Friend, 1992, Untitled, 1992).
In photographing his family and his own likeness, he created several striking images, such as the portrait of his beautiful wife (Dinka with the Twins, 1969) and a Self-Portrait (1975). Since 1969, a substantial part of his body of work has been devoted to his twin daughters, Ivana and Zrinka, whom he photographed in various ways throughout their childhood and beyond.
On the morning of 11 January 1968, while walking to work with his camera at the ready, he came across the Peristyle whose stone pavement had been painted red. This action, carried out overnight by students from the Faculty of Teacher Education and pupils from the School of Applied Arts in Split, was fortuitously documented by Buljević with several iconic photographs. Despite the initial backlash, the Red Peristyle eventually became an emblematic and mythical symbolic gesture of the New Art Practice in Split and Croatia. On that pivotal day, Buljević used colour slides, though he generally favoured black-and-white film, as demonstrated by his personal archive from which photographs were selected for a recent exhibition. It could be said that he was an old-school photographer, who remained loyal to analogue cameras throughout his career, even as digital cameras grew increasingly popular.
His persistent quest for a compelling, plastic, and nuanced interpretation of architectural and artistic heritage in his professional work clearly shaped Buljević’s talent for framing subjects in the realm of fine art photography. When taking photographs for his own enjoyment, he displayed an interest in various scenes from his natural milieu, exploring different genres depending on the occasion and his current tastes. He frequently showcased his fine art photographs in numerous group exhibitions, with some specifically created in response to given themes. He was especially drawn to the surface of the sea, but even more so to structures of both natural and industrial origin, characterised by very similar or identical, repetitive, and often simple geometric patterns.
On several occasions, Buljević skilfully tapped into the expressive and associative power of shadows as a motivating force for his captivating photographs.
The compositional balance, characteristic of Buljević’s work, is also evident in the photographs that emerge from the synergy of keen observation and prompt reaction. These lasting light records of fleeting moments in space provide a potential source of emotion and deeper meaning. We refer to it as potential because the artist aimed to depict the subject through the lens of a neutral observer, without intending to guide the observer on how to read it. The compositions typically lack dramatic movement and theatricality, and are devoid of grand gestures or excessive sentimentality. Each situation appears ordinary, yet through the artist’s skilful execution, it transforms into something extraordinary. However, the emotional and social sensitivity is already apparent in the selection of subjects, as vividly illustrated by Buljević’s favourite photograph, titled An Old Woman. He captured this image in Primošten in 1973, at the moment a hunched woman was moving away from a similarly bent and frail tree.
Buljević shaped his photographic poetics by drawing on the achievements of film art, which is understandable given his prominent work in short films. The photograph of the stairs (On the Steps, 1967), showing a girl at the bottom and a distant, hunched woman near the upper edge of the frame, is a striking example of personalised optics, reminiscent of an iconic cinematic shot. The impressive contrast between the repetitive rhythm of the sturdy architectural structure and the delicate female figures seems to resonate with the famous scene featuring the steps in Sergei Eisenstein’s film Battleship Potemkin. With its multifaceted meanings and the discomfort it evokes, along with a pronounced aesthetic component, this long-past record of a memorable scene acts as a pars pro toto of Buljević’s complex photographic persona. Although Buljević fortunately titled and dated this piece, much of the precious material in his extensive archive remains both untitled and undated.
A crucial component of his oeuvre includes solarisations with motifs distilled to their contours, making them function as visual artefacts. Among the most prominent is the striking photogenic drawing titled Dream, which has been dated variously in the literature: 1972, circa 1974, and 1980. Over the years, the artist produced several iterations, suggesting different times of creation. In its original form, the figure in a black-and-white striped poncho appeared on the right side of the black-and-white ribbed fence, but by 1980, Buljević flipped the negative to create a variant with the figure on the left side of the composition.
Over the course of five decades of intensive interaction with the camera, Zvonimir Buljević has distinguished himself as an exceptional photographer, earning recognition and multiple professional awards. His skilfully composed snapshots of tangible reality and harmonious compositions clearly showcase his artistry and observational prowess, as well as his intellectual acumen in understanding subjects from historical, artistic, and cultural perspectives. Furthermore, his erudition, paired with a sense of curiosity, encouraged him to explore the expressive capabilities of the medium; consequently, he not only focused on classic photography but also dabbled in photogenic drawing and ventured into abstraction. Due to his humanistic disposition, he was attuned to a variety of themes and motifs, ranging from grandiose monuments to those that might seem minor or even banal, likely unnoticed by the average observer. Nonetheless, he approached each subject with exceptional care and respect, whether he was capturing the Peristyle, the interior of the cathedral, countless other monuments of world cultural heritage, or a small snail perched on the enormous thumb of Meštrović’s Gregory of Nin (In Search of Happiness, 1979). However, Buljević’s work has slowly faded into obscurity, making it high time to present it in a more comprehensive manner. We hope that the exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, showcasing around ninety works, will be an informative reminder of how remarkable photography was in its heyday.
Zvonimir Buljević, a photographer and writer, was born on 19 September 1933 in Cetinje, as the son of Jakov and Zorka, née Stanić, both hailing from Lokva Rogoznica (close to Omiš). He relocated to Split in 1936. From 1958 Buljević worked as a professional photographer, first at the Urban Planning Institute of Dalmatia and later, from 1978 until his retirement in 1995 at the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments in Split. His photographs have accompanied a variety of monographs, exhibition catalogues, guides, and other publications, while as a writer, he has produced numerous short stories, essays, travel accounts, diary entries, reviews, and other writings published in literary magazines and newspapers (Vidik, Mogućnosti, Dubrovnik, Zadarska revija, Dometi, Kolo, Teka, Republika, Telegram, Oko, Start, Slobodna Dalmacija, Nedjeljna Dalmacija, Vjesnik, Adriatic, Večernji list, Književna Rijeka, etc.). For many years, he contributed a column titled Tragovi (Traces) in Nedjeljna Dalmacija.
He published a total of eleven books: Priče s krova (Stories from the Roof) in 1968, the novel Zli otoci (Evil Islands) in 1970, short story collections such as Ožiljci (Scars) in 1971, Od sna i natrag (From Dreams to Reality) in 1975, Blizanke (Twins) in 1980, Knjiga tragova (Book of Traces) in 1984, Jutro prvog dana (Morning of the First Day) in 1988, Priče o Mišku (Tales about Miško) in 1997, (De)mitološke priče [(De)mythological Stories] in 2000, Nisko sunce siječnja (Low January Sun) in 2003, and Za danom dan (Day after Day) in 2006. His final book, Između jučer i sutra: Uvijek je sada i svugdje je ovdje. Naročito kad umreš (Between Yesterday and Tomorrow: It is Always Now and Everywhere is Here. Especially When You Die), was published posthumously in 2011.
He had been a member of the Photo Club Split since 1964 and became a member of the Croatian Writers’ Association and Matica Hrvatska in 1968. He held fifteen solo exhibitions and participated in numerous group photography exhibitions both at home and abroad, where he received notable awards (Arena First Prize for best photograph in 1974, First Prize at the International Exhibition in Ceylon in 1976). Five of his solo exhibitions were accompanied by photo monographs published by the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments in Split, printed in several languages.He created several short films, and won the Oktavijan Miletić Award for best cinematography for the film Na kraju puta – san (At the End of the Road – Dream), at the Mala Pula Festival in 1969. He died on 9 November 2006 in Split.
