Drago Jurak
Zagreb, HR, 1911
Dragotin Jurak was autodidact. Some of his work is now part of the collection of the Croatian Museum for Naive Art in Zagreb.
Drago Jurak regularly worked as unskilled assistant carpenter on the decors of Croatia’s national theatre. In 1960 he began to paint his spectacular buildings and cities, with ink and flowmaster on silk. Jurak always used a steep central perspective, which is why the people in his buildings look tiny.
About his work he said that it represents ancient cities in which modern day people could live. There are towers, streets, squares, soccer pitches: everything that mankind has seen so far. There isn’t a country in the world that could actually afford to build his cities. They would simply be too expensive. Only if all countries joined forces, Jurak’s utopia would become reality.