Dado (painter)

Miodrag Đurić (4 October 1933 – 27 November 2010), known as Dado, was a Montenegrin-born artist who spent most of his life and creative career in France.

He is particularly known as a painter but was also active as an engraver, draftsman, book illustrator and sculptor.

Đurić was born on 4 October 1933, in Cetinje, the historic capital of Montenegro, then part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and grew up in a middle-class family.

His mother, Vjera Đurić (née Kujačić), was a biology teacher, and his father, Ranko Đurić, belonged to a family of entrepreneurs.

His childhood years were affected by world events and by personal tragedies.

During World War II, Yugoslavia endured Italian and German occupation, while the local Partisans initiated a resistance that led to the emergence of Tito's Yugoslavia.

At the age of 11, Đurić lost his mother in a country still coping with the wounds of war.

He then temporarily moved to Slovenia to be put up by a maternal uncle.

Although uninterested in general education, Đurić developed a strong interest in art and displayed early creative skills.

His family supported him to develop his talent and he started studying fine arts in the maritime town of Herceg Novi between 1947 and 1951.

From 1951, Đurić moved to Serbia to carry on his education in the fine arts school of Belgrade.

Encouraged by one of his teachers in Belgrade, Đurić moved to Paris, France, in 1956 in the hope to work there as an artist.

He survived thanks to small jobs and eventually was hired in a lithography workshop run by Gérard Patrice.

In the meantime and through his professional environment, he learned French fast enough to be able to meet and interact with well-established artists such as Kalinowski and Jean Dubuffet.

These meetings and his showing some of his drawings and paintings raised the curiosity of artists and art dealers alike.

Art dealer and former resistant Daniel Cordier discovered the young Đurić and offered him the unique opportunity to show his work in his art gallery in 1958: Dado's professional career was launched.

Dado quickly moved from Paris to the countryside of Vexin.

An illustration of this evolution can be seen in large paintings such as Les Limbes or Le Massacre des Innocents (1958–1959), ''La Grande Ferme.

In 1960, he settled in a former water mill in Hérouval, Oise.

This place was a haven of creation and social life until his death.

During these first years in France, he developed a particularly strong friendship with Bernard Réquichot, a French artist who died in 1961.

Dado's painting and drawing activities extended across almost six decades.

His paintings are mainly oil painting on linen but he also used acrylic paint and wood or even metal plates as supports.

Though his creative world is highly recognizable, his style and painting technique evolved along the years.

While painting, he conducted a permanent search for the essence of energy, progressively abandoning details and fine techniques in favour of more colourful and dynamic compositions.

Hommage à Bernard Réquichot (1962–1963), Le Diptyque d'Hérouval (1975–1976) and L'École de Prescillia'' (2001–2002), in the collections of the Centre Pompidou, Musée national d'art moderne, Paris.

Sculpture played a particular role in Dado's creation, as premises can be seen as early as in 1962 but most works were made in the 2000s until his death.

In 1962, Dado's first achievement in sculpture was a pole using cattle bones collected in a knacker's yard.

Dado realised his first engraving (a dry-point) in 1966 in Georges Visat's workshop.

He was also interested in lithography.

Dado started exploring the techniques of engraving (copper-plate engraving and etching) with the help of Alain Controu in Normandy in 1967.

In 1968, Dado exhibited a Citroën Traction Avant car in the CNAC, Paris.

He continued a substantial work in this domain, including several years in the 1980s in the Lacourière-Frélaut Engraving workshop in Paris and in an engraving workshop close to Hérouval (collaboration with engraver Biel Genty).

A part of his engraving work features in the collections of the Département des estampes et de la Photographie of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (in English: The Department of Stamps and Photography of the National Library of France).

From the 1990s, Dado also involved himself in several ambitious fresco projects.

The four most noticeable achievements are a blockhaus in Fécamp (Normandy), the embassy of the IVth International in Montjavoult (near Hérouval), a set of frescos in a former vine industry building in Domaine des Orpellières, Hérault and a Last Judgment fresco in the former chapel of a leper colony in the town of Gisors, Eure.

Drawing had been present in Dado's creative means of expression since his beginnings.

The artist initially used pencils and India ink.

He also resorted to mixed techniques using gouache, pencils and India ink, realising impressive collages.

Their collaboration continued until the 1990s.