Hlebine

Hlebine, a Podravina village east of Koprivnica, is inseparable from Croatian naïve art and the local tradition of reverse painting on glass. Its focal point is the Gallery of Naïve Art, opened in 1968 in a purpose-built museum designed by Miroslav Begović. The permanent display brings together Ivan Generalić and the first and second generations of the Hlebine School, while a sculpture park added in 1974 and the Ivan Generalić collection established in 1985 extend the visit outdoors and into a separate museum holding. Nearby, the Generalić family estate combines Ivan’s old house, Josip’s gallery and studio, and the Janičina hiža ethnographic house. The village itself also carries the movement’s imprint: Ivan Generalić painted a fresco in the local primary school in 1954. At the 2.5-hectare Stari zanati estate, visitors can connect Hlebine’s painting tradition with pottery, blacksmithing and wooden-toy making, all rooted in the same flat Podravina landscape depicted by its artists.

Hlebine is not a village of unrelated sights but a place shaped by one remarkable artistic movement. The Hlebine School grew from Krsto Hegedušić’s encounters with Ivan Generalić and Franjo Mraz, whom he encouraged to paint rural Podravina scenes in oils on glass. Today the museum collection contains more than 500 paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints. Generalić, Mraz and Mirko Virius represent its first generation, while Josip Generalić, Mijo Kovačić, Ivan Večenaj and Dragan Gaži are among the second. Seeing their work in Hlebine makes it possible to follow the movement’s development within the village landscape that supplied its fields, winters, animals and farm labourers.