Mihajlo Petrov - Paintings (1902 - 1983)

Mihajlo S. Petrov (1902-1983) was a Serbian-Yugoslavian avant-garde painter, graphic artist, illustrator, etcher, and art critic.

After he completed his studies under the tutelage of Ljubomir Ivanović at the Arts and Crafts School and Milan Milovanović at the Royal Art School (Kraljevska umetnička škola) in Belgrade. Influenced by Yvan Goll, Dragan Aleksić and Ljubomir Micić, Petrov became involved with Zenit magazine which Micić first launched in 1921 in Zagreb and then in 1924 in Belgrade. The ideas communicated through the Zenit art review became known as Zenitism, a first notable art movement from the Balkans in Europe. He then went on to pursue further study in Vienna (1922), Krakow (1923) and the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris (1924-1925). Petrov was one of Zenit's most active associates in his first phase (1921), as well as its most ardent collaborator. He was also a collaborator with other avant-garde journals such as Dada Tank, and Út.

In 1924, Petrov was one of the youngest artists to have his paintings on display at the international exhibition in Belgrade which featured the works of more than 100 contemporary European artists. Petrov and two of his colleagues (Ivan Radović and Veljko Stojanović) had a great impact on the art scene in Belgrade from the 1920s right through the 1930s. His oeuvres date from 1915 until 1946.

Member of the Oblik group 1926—1929. Founder of the Graphic Department of the Academy of Fine Arts and the Academy of Applied Arts in Belgrade. One of the organizers of the Sixth Yugoslav Exhibition in Novi Sad in 1927 and the First Graphic Exhibition in 1934 in Belgrade. Specially for "Zenit" he made linoleums, which represent the peak of his artistic creativity and with which he is involved in current trends in art; at the same time, they also mean an exceptional moment in the history of Serbian fine art, because it thus, in an authentic way, came close to avant-garde searches in the world.