Slavko Kopač
1913–1995 (age 82)
Biography
Slavko Kopač (August 21, 1913 – November 23, 1995) was a Croatian painter, sculptor and poet.
Kopač graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1937. After graduation, as a young artist, he studied in Paris thanks to a scholarship from the French government. He continued his education in Florence where he studied philosophy and the history of Art from 1943 to 1948. In that period he started to liberate himself from acquired knowledge and rejected academicism, entering the circle of some of the prominent artists of the 20th century. In 1948, he has settled permanently in Paris, where together with Jean Dubuffet, André Breton and Michel Tapié he founded the Compagnie de l'Art Brut and was the leader and creator of the Art brut collection for 30 years. He worked closely with André Breton, who organized exhibitions for his work at his gallery À l'Étoile scellée. Michel Tapié included him in his book Un Art Autre, in which Kopač stands as one of the founders of Art informel together with Jean Dubuffet, Jean Fautrier, Paul Jackson Pollock and many others.
He exhibited in Zagreb, Florence, Rome and Paris.