Antonio Zoran Mušič

Zoran Music was born on February 12 in Bukovica near Gorizia. After finishing his studies at the art academy in Zagreb Music spent some time in Spain. 1934-1940 Music lived in Maribor. In 1940 he moved to Ljubljana, where he lived until 1943. In October 1943 Music went to Venice. One year later Music was arrested in Venice and deported to Dachau where he franticly sketched the life in the camp under extremely difficult circumstances. After his liberation in 1945 Music returned to Venice.

A gradual change in style and a move towards abstraction can slowly be seen in his work from the 1950s. The horses are at first clearly recognizable, but slowly he allows details to disappear, leaving behind only the most essential elements. In Cavallini, the creatures are sparsely delineated and threaten to merge with the indistinct and barren landscape which surrounds them. The warm ambers and yellows of the artist's palette reflect the heat of the earth, and his economy of color is relieved only by small scattered areas of pattern, a hint of the more fantastical horses of his later work. During the 1960s his organic motifs became more and more abstract and his compositions abandoned the laws of three-dimensionality. The much acclaimed series 'We are not the Last', in which the artist transformed the terror of his experiences in a concentration camp into documents of universal tragedy, was made in the 1970s. Music's work has been honored in numerous international exhibitions, such as the large retrospective exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris in 1955.