Julije Knifer

Who was Julije Knifer?

Julije Knifer was a Croatian abstract painter and a founding member of the 1960s Croatian art collective known as the Gorgona Group.

The central motif of Knifer’s art is the exploration of meander, a geometric form which he had been creating since 1960 in various painting techniques such as print, oil, acrylic paint, collage and mural. An example of which is the colossal meander created by Knifer on a 20 x 30 m canvas in a quarry in Tübingen.

He was also one of the founding members of the Gorgona Group, whose members from 1959 to 1966 were: Miljenko Horvat, Ivan Kožarić, Marijan Jevšovar, Dimitrije Bašičević, Matko Meštrović, Radoslav Putar, Đuro Seder and Josip Vaništa. In 1961 he participated at the first New Tendencies’ exhibition in Zagreb. He exhibited at many national and international shows including, The New Tendencies exhibitions, Art Abstrait Constructif International at the Denise René Gallery, Konstruktivisten at the Städtisches Museum Leverkusen, Oltre l’informale, the Venice Biennale, the São Paulo Art Biennale. He collaborated with the Dany Keller Gallery in Munich, the Hoffmann Gallery in Friedberg and the Frank Elbaz Gallery in Paris.