The exhibition is divided into five distinct sections, crossing the chronological succession of the works with some main thematic groupings. We begin with the "Dalmatian motifs" of the 40s and 50s which represent the first pictorial experiences of the artist, born in February 1909 in Gorizia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. After completing his high school studies, Zoran Mušič had enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. It is a total of 16 works that include oils, watercolors, drypoint, pencils, depicting the karst expanses of Dalmatia, with horses, dry stone walls, donkeys and women who go to the market under the blazing sun. Visions of simplicity and emotional love for that land.
In 1943, Mušič went for the first time to Venice, a city to which he will always remain particularly attached and where after the war the master Malipiero will put at his disposal a studio on the top floor of the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory. On display, a series of 27 watercolors, featuring bridges, canals, landscapes of the lagoon city and a large oil dedicated to the Giudecca Canal.
The section that testifies to the terrible experience of being deported to a German concentration camp is certainly of great emotional impact. Arrested in Venice by the Gestapo, Zoran Mušič was transferred to Trieste. Faced with the choice of entering the Istrian special units associated with the SS or going to Germany, he chooses deportation to Dachau. At the end of November 1944, he was registered as prisoner number 128231. The experience of the extermination camp was able to express it in the drawings executed in desperate conditions. The horror was such that his only thought was that he could leave a trace of this unimaginable event. The drawings were made in difficult to understand conditions: ink hidden and stretched with water to make it last, folded sheets hidden under the shirt, papers and pens stolen from the workshops where he worked with the other prisoners. Reduced almost like the corpses that now invaded every space, he was able to find the strength to continue living thanks to his art. Of two hundred sketches he managed to save only 35. In Lugano it will be possible to admire some works of the pictorial cycle “We are not the last”: with these words the prisoners of Dachau had in fact expressed the hope that never again a hell like that could repeat itself. “We are not the last” was also the title of an exhibition, presented first in Munich at the Haus der Kunst, then in Brussels, at the Palace of Fine Arts, and finally in Trier in the museum by Kurt Schweiches.
After the war, Zoran Mušič married Ida Cadorin-Barbarigo and some works in the “portraits” section are dedicated to his wife, including works such as “La dame au chapeau” and the self-portrait “Nude standing”. The Lugano exhibition also presents a series of “Sienese” and Cortina landscapes, “rocky” landscapes and plant motifs, as well as a large 1988 canvas dedicated to Paris. The exhibition proposed by the Braglia foundation is accompanied by a book on the artist's work with essays by well-known art critics who have investigated and deepened different aspects of the life and work of Zoran Mušič who died in Venice in 2005 at the age of 96 years old.
Anna and Gabriele Braglia are the founders of the Foundation that bears their name. In more than 50 years, cultivating their passion for art, they have found and collected works by the greatest masters of the twentieth century: from Picasso to Balla, to Modigliani and many others. The Braglia couple are also among the major collectors of the Italian-Slovenian artist Anton Zoran Music with numerous watercolors, drawings and oils. Of particular importance is the collection on German Expressionism with works by major interpreters such as: Klee, Kandinsky, von Jawlensky, Macke, Marc, Münter, Nolde, von Werefkin, etc. With the foundation of the Foundation, which took place on 6 June 2014 in Lugano, Gabriele and Anna Braglia have realized their deep desire to keep their collection intact over time, to promote and disseminate art, opening it to an increasingly vast and widespread public. . The sons Riccardo and Enrico have enthusiastically married and supported this initiative. The Foundation is based in Lugano in a large exhibition space designed and built with great architectural rigor by the architect Carlo Rampazzi, assisted by the support of skilled craftsmen and technicians, and equipped with the most advanced technologies for the conservation and display of the works.