As a result of his activities he was forced to serve in Nazi labour camps. He escaped only to become a prisoner of the Soviet Red Army. Eventually he would escape his captors once again by going underwater and then trekking back a thousand miles through the Ukraine and Romania to post-war Yugoslavia.
After the war Zeljko received a Master’s degree of Fine Arts degree from the University of Budapest. His artistic media now included sculpture, clay, painting, printmaking, metal, stained glass & weaving. Disillusioned by the restraints put on artists under the Tito regime, he defected to the West in 1946. |
Always an academic, he lectured for the Arts Council and for the Extra-Mural Department of Edinburgh University and became a critic for the Weekly Scotsman.
He wrote a manifesto Art in the Modern World which was published in 1956, and was featured in Young Artists of Promise, a publication which featured 120 of the brightest new UK artists. He also contributed to another manifesto - Portraits of the Taurus Artists. Probably his most notable achievement was the completion of his autobiography Torn Canvas in 1957. In it he recounts the story of his youth and struggles through WWII. The original first edition printing features a three colour lino cut on the dust jacket and illustrations of seven of his early works. |