The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted many of our plans, and the audience of the Regional Museum of Jagodina was greatly damaged by the cancellation of the retrospective exhibition of the native artist Ilija Ika Vukićević, planned for the end of September 2020.
Starting in 2016, the Regional Museum of Jagodina prepared three large retrospectives of the three most important local artists: Žikica Jovanović, Dragoslav Marković and Milorad Trajković Pajko. The exhibitions were very successful and they were an opportunity for all of us to remember these great Jagodina artists.
The next exhibition was to be a retrospective exhibition of Ilija Ika Vukićević, which was specific in many ways. First of all, Ika’s works have not been seen by the Jagodina audience since 1984, when his last retrospective was organized in the Regional Museum of Jagodina. Since that time, it seems that the name of Ilija Vukićević has been forgotten. Therefore, the exhibition of his works would be an opportunity to remember him and point out the importance he had in the renewal of artistic life in post-war Jagodina (at that time named Svetozarevo).
The special significance of this exhibition is also in the fact that a large number of our fellow citizens, who own Ika’s paintings, agreed to borrow that works for displaying at the exhibiton. In that way, we came to data on more than a hundred works by Ika Vukićević that are in private ownership, not only in our city, but in the whole world.
While we are all waiting for the exhibition of Ilija Vukićević, let us remember him and his work in this virtual exhibition.
