Marking the 120th anniversary of its establishment, University Library in Split officially opened the exhibition "Drawings and carvings: a selection from Split University Library’s Graphic Collection", on October 10, in Library’s Department of Special Collections (floor -2) and University Gallery.
The exhibition is a reminder of all artists and custodians of cultural heritage who, over the past twelve decades, were responsible for establishing, enriching and preserving the Graphic Collection fund. A total of 180, works created from the 17th century to the present day, diverse in content and technique (drawings, graphics and graphic-poetry maps, artistic stationery and photographs) are on display.
- Our Library was created in 1903 under the auspices of the National Slavic Reading Room and was for many years city library. In 1962, it became scientific and oriented its activity and content scientifically. With the foundation of the University in 1974, becomes its central library. However, officially becomes university library just in 1992. Its long historical journey is evidenced by its fund and collections, such as this one by our Special Collections Department, presented to the public for the first time in its full range - director Ana Utrobičić said, expressing gratitude to the head of Department of Special Collections, Mihaela Kovačić, her colleague Abra Papić, head of Department for Protecting and Digitizing Materials, Ana Radić Bizjak, as well as her colleagues who contributed greatly in setting up the exhibition.
Director Utrobičić expressed special gratitude to the head of University Gallery, Helena Trze Jakelić, who is responsible for the fact that the library is receiving more and more donations from our artists in recent years. After the exhibition in the University Gallery, many artists, encouraged by Trze Jakelić, donate some of their works, thereby enriching the library fund.
According to head of Special Collections Department, Mihaela Kovačić, marking the 120th anniversary, the decision was made to hold this particular exhibition for a number of reasons.
- Its very name was already written in the draft statute of city library from which University Library was created, where among other departments, for example incunabula and old manuscripts, a collection of drawings and carvings is mentioned, referring primarily to woodcuts and copperplates from 1913. Visitors were able to see some of these works even earlier, but in this space, the new building we moved into in 2009, all the collections could be adequately stored and developed, including the graphic collection.
On this occasion, as Vice-rector for infrastructure, prof. Nikša Jajac Ph.D., emphasized the importance of moving the library to a new building on the Campus, promising that the University would continue to make efforts to further develop the library in this regard, which will also provide its employees better working conditions.
- The library is older than the University and is the one that inherits and preserves our knowledge, which is then available for the benefit of all of us and our students. This is precisely what we must appreciate and cherish - vice-rector Jajac said, congratulating the director and all employees, as well as former directors, on this important anniversary in his own and name of the Rector, prof. Dragan Ljutić Ph.D..
In addition to documents from the Library's archives about beginnings of starting the collection, oldest reference materials - catalogues and invitations to exhibitions, for example, the catalogue of the Emanuel Vidović’ exhibition from 1903, catalogues of Galić Salon from 1926, HDLU Split and others - are presented at the exhibition. In addition to the oldest graphics of sacred and secular motifs, interest is aroused by the Split artistic circle, 1920s to 1945, whose artists, such as Anđel Uvodić and maestro Ivo Tijardović, dedicated their graphic folders to the Library.
The exhibition will remain open until October 31.