* Yugoslav painting of the second half of the 20^th century

The collection was formed a few years after the foundation of the Gallery from the works that had been purchased at the exhibitions of the Memorial of Nadežda Petrović. Besides the purchase (through the Purchase Award at the Memorial), the paintings had been provided at auctions (held in the Gallery or in the Sale Gallery in KosančIćev venac) or they had been given by the authors and other donors.

A more serious purchase started with regular exhibiting. Yet, purchase policy was neither continuous nor planned. It was mostly connected with exhibiting and on the basis of which the Gallery made its own selection.

At first the collection Yugoslav painting of the second half of the 20^th century was called Contemporary Yugoslav painting after 1960. However, at the turn of the new century, with the appearance of numerous works of art in the Gallery fund, which could be classed neither chronologically nor conceptually in the existing collection, in 2000 the collection was renamed and has the present name. It's just a formal renaming that surely is not its final encompassment, regarding further real possibilities for its both numerical and conceptual additional supplies.

The collection Yugoslav painting of the second half of the 20^th century consists of the works of art done in the period between 1950 and 2000. The collection is extremely heterogeneous, as well as the styles, trends and phenomena on the Yugoslav art scene of the mentioned period. Yet, the collection contains mostly paintings, but there are also exhibits that belong to graphic art, drawing, sculpture, photography, objects, installations, video works etc.

If we analyse the works of art in the collection, we can notice that there are works characterictic of the phenomena in art in the second half of the last century: promotion of picture phenomenology and optics, going into the spheres of pure painting, lyric abstraction, abstract expressionism, enformel, figuring of various periods, hyperrealism, emotion and a gesture, new expressionism, conceptualism, eclecticism of styles, mixed media etc. The works have been purchesed and the collection filled up at the exhibitions that have presented the mentioned phenomena and events, so this collection, according to other gallery collections, can be said to depict completely the exhibiting work of the Gallery.

The exhibits from the collection, at the same time, give a cross-section of art happenings on the Yugoslav art scene, regarding the fact that the collection includes almost all important authors, stylistic trends and phenomena, which were present in this region in the mentioned period. After some experts, the collectiom contains a few works that represent masterpieces of some authors, such as the works done by Ivan Tabaković, Pedja Milosavljević, Vladimir Veličković. There are also some impressive works of poetic realism done by Božidar Prodanović and Marko Čelebonović, enformels by Mića Popović and Vera Božičković-Popović, paintings of visual metaphors by Petar Lubarda and new expressionism by Milan Konjović, geometric abstractions by Stojan Ćelić and works of figuring in various periods – by Olja Ivanjicki, Vojislav Stanić, Aleksandar Luković, Božidar Damjanovski, Kosa Bokšan, Miljenko Stančić, Milan Blanuša.

This collection, due to chronological belonging, was complted with the works of native painters Živan Vulić, Svetislav Žorić, Spasoje Jaraković, Dragan Ćirković, Bogić Risimović – Risim, Prvoslav Djordjević, Grujica Lazarević, Nebojša Bežanić, Miloš Stojić.

Since 1967 the Art Gallery “Nadežda Petrović” has had its constant display consisting of the works that belong to this collection. Of course, during the years, the display had been changed, revised and filled up. It got a kind of final features in the 1990s. The display is outlined in such a way that it helps one to comprehend art happenings; it is a whole presentation of the development of Serbian and Yugoslav art concerning only art problems – form, colours, lights, substance, construction etc. The permanent exhibition includes the works done by V. Veličković, P. Milosavljević, S. Ćelić, I. Tabaković, M. Popović, P. Lubarda, M. Konjović, M. StančIć, G. Jocić, M. Miletić, V. Krstić, M. Cmelić, M. Prodanović, A. Djurić, S. Trajković, M. Marinković – Cile, Z. Prica, A. Cvetković, etc.

The works from this collection, by various selections (chronological, problem), are often exhibited in other galleries and museums in some other cities.