The Southern Slav Sculptor: Ivan Meštrović, Yugoslavia, and Yorkshire

Join Jelena Sofronijevic for a conversation about sculptor Ivan Meštrović, his legacy in Leeds, and regional diasporic communities today.

*Please note this is a hybrid event. Please select either the ‘In-Person’ or ‘Online’ ticket type when booking your place.*

Ivan Meštrović (1883–1962) is considered ‘one of the chief spiritual protagonists of the Yugoslav idea’ in the early 20th century. This national idea and identity was often expressed in foreign and diasporic contexts—in the institutions of public art, as much as politics and academia. Meštrović was born in Vrpolje, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and present-day Croatia. Many of Meštrović’s best-known works were created in periods of study, exile, and refuge, from Italy, Switzerland, Austria, and the US.

‘The Southern Slav Sculptor’ was Meštrović’s landmark exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London. The exhibition was later presented in fragments at the Institute of Fine Arts in Glasgow and Leeds City Art Gallery between 1915 and 1916. Each iteration aroused public, political, and artistic interest across the UK.

In 1915, Yorkshire artist Henry Moore attended a lecture about Meštrović at the University of Leeds. We know this from archive materials at the Research Library of the Henry Moore Institute. Moore would remodel Meštrović’s neoclassical references in his early figurative drawings and reliefs. Some forty years later, Moore travelled to Yugoslavia. This visit, and his practice, remains prominent in the region’s modern and contemporary art histories.

Revisiting these exhibitions over 100 years on is an opportunity to challenge singular national and nationalist representations. It is also an opportunity to revisit the lives of the different Yugoslavias through which these artists worked.

This talk with Jelena Sofronijevic traces the sculptor’s presence in collections between Leeds and Bradford. We’ll bring in figures such as Dorothy Una Ratcliffe and Lord Brotherton, Dimitrije Mitrinović and Oscar Nemon, and Frank Rutter and Michael Sadler. We’ll also explore dis/connections with Balkan and Yugoslav/diaspora communities who live across Yorkshire today.

You can see some of Meštrović’s portraits on display in Who am I to you?

Jelena Sofronijevic (@empirelinespodcast) is a producer, curator, writer and researcher, working at the intersections of cultural history, politics and the arts. Their independent curatorial projects include Invasion Ecology (2024), SEEDLINGS: Diasporic Imaginaries, with Travelling Gallery (2025), and Seeds of Hate and Hope, at the Sainsbury Centre (2025). Jelena produces EMPIRE LINES, a podcast which uncovers the unexpected flows of empires through art, supported through their role as Curator with Radical Ecology (2026-2027). They are also pursuing a practice-based PhD with Gray’s School of Art, curating exhibitions with Balkan and Yugoslavian/diasporic artists in British art collections.