Bogdan Grom
Bogdan Grom
(1918 – 2013)
Bogdan Grom was born in 1918 in Devinščina near Trieste. His father, as the director of the Drava Banovina Savings Bank in Ljubljana, supported artists and took him to exhibitions. His mother also nurtured his appreciation for beauty and love for his homeland and culture. He studied at the art academies in Perugia, Rome, and Venice, graduating in 1944 under painters Guido Cadorin and Carlo della Zorza. He later specialized in applied arts in Munich and Venice. Grom travelled widely and lived in Prague, Trieste, Zagreb, Subotica, Ljubljana, Belgrade, and Ptuj. He taught in Trieste and New York.
“And if I had two hearts, one would be in Karst, the other in New Mexico. But I have one heart. Half of it is in Karst, half in America.”
Work
Before emigrating to America in 1957, Grom created batiks, cityscapes, landscapes, and genre scenes characterized by expressive freshness. He was also involved in graphic design, especially book illustration. In America, he embraced a renewed neofuturistic dynamism, with stylized outlines of karst stone walls becoming central motifs in his cut-outs. His sculptures in various materials display a sense of plasticity, monumentality, and a blend of traditional and industrial materials. Grom created numerous installations for buildings, palaces, shopping centers, squares, sacred architecture, stained glass, and decorative mosaics.
His bronze sculpture The Guard (1968) is at the Slovenian Embassy in Washington, D.C. Social issues and regional identity were close to his heart. He began exhibiting in 1949 with the Slovenian artists’ group in Trieste, showing in major Italian cities and participating in the Rome Quadriennale. Grom’s works are part of permanent collections worldwide, including the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte in Rome, the Revoltella Museum in Trieste, and the Guggenheim Museum in New York. In 2011, Slovenian President Danilo Türk awarded him for his artistic contributions.
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1980 | 15/50 | cut-out mixed media, paper