Studying the art that developed in the first decades of the 20th century, its appearances, participants and relationships, creates a kind of prejudice that it is easy to get to the facts that caused their creation and movement. However, sometimes the circumstances are such that today the distant 18th and 19th centuries, with some well-preserved artifacts and data, seem closer and more accessible for study and exhibition. Therefore, the case of the painter Paulina Sudarski, whose life ended tragically at the age of 29 by being killed on Sutjeska, is particularly interesting.
On the one hand, we have the information that, due to her short life, a considerable number of works remained behind her, stored in three institutions1 and with two heirs2, and that several of her exhibitions were organized in the last half century, mostly at the initiative of the curator of the Zrenjanin National museum that preserves the legacy of this painter. However, on the other hand, in contrast to the visual trace of Pauline Sudarski's life and work, the written one is much smaller, reduced to a couple of biographical data that were inconsistent, incomplete, and some even inaccurate. It was especially aggravating that her name, even though she is an academic painter, is not mentioned in any review of Serbian modern art, nor in any publications dealing with 20th century painting. That is why the centenary of the birth of this former student of the famous Petar Dobrović, marked by an exhibition in her hometown, Novi Bečej, in June 20143, also served as a kind of attempt to revise and revitalize the name and oeuvre of Pauline Sudarski, with the aim of in which it was exclusively studied, places it in a wider circle of Serbian modern art.
1 Zrenjanin National Museum, Matica Srpska Gallery and "Pava Sudarski" Preschool in Novi Bečej.
2 Tatjana Janković from Belgrade and Milena Pandurović from Novi Bečej.
3 The exhibition was held in the House of Culture of the municipality of Novi Bečej from June 12 to 30, 2014, organized by the Zrenjanin National Museum, the Preschool "Pava Sudarski" and the aforementioned House of Culture.
