MERSAD BERBER LEGACY

Mersad Berber Legacy

A special section of the Bosniak Institute – Adil Zulfikarpašić Foundation’s Art Collection is dedicated to works exhibited in the Mersad Berber’s Green Salon, donated by the artist himself in 2005.

During the major exhibition organized by the Bosniak Institute at the Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul in November 2004, Mersad Berber was rightfully celebrated as one of the greats of Bosnian-Herzegovinian visual arts. He showcased his impressive canvases and graphic works, earning a prominent place among his peers. After the exhibition, Berber made a landmark donation to the Institute, generously gifting all his works displayed in Istanbul, along with additional pieces that complemented the donated cycles: Sarajevo Postcards, Skender's Sonnets, Allegory of Srebrenica, and The Great Allegory of Srebrenica.

This gesture was not only a mark of respect for his long-time friend and founder of the Bosniak Institute, Adil Zulfikarpašić, but also a reflection of the artist's commitment to the noble mission of preserving and promoting Bosnian-Herzegovinian cultural heritage. Berber further enriched the Institute's Art Collection by donating works of prominent Bosnian and Croatian sculptors, which are now part of the Institute's permanent exhibitions.

"Our time will also write its history through Berber's paintings: from the golden gamma and aristocratic splendor of the early cycles and the artist's conversations with Piero della Francesco, Guercino, Velasquez, Gericault, David, Ingres, Ivan Kramskoy, Klimt, Bukovac and Jurkić to the dark, macabre pits of Srebrenica, Berber is always a chronicler of Bosnia who tirelessly paints fragments of a single picture that reflects all the layers of Bosnian cultural history and the complexity of its historical experience - from the nostalgic longing for his native Krajina and its great poet Skender (the Skender Sonnets cycle), through the picturesque meeting of East and West at the dawn of the Austro-Hungarian era (the Sarajevo Postcards cycle) to the tragic modernity of Srebrenica (the Great Allegory of Srebrenica cycle) from the collection of the Bosniak Institute - Adil Zulfikarpašić Foundation in Sarajevo." (Aida Abadžić-Hodžić, from the catalogue Mersad Berber: A Gift to the Bosniak Institute - Adil Zulfikarpašić Foundation in Sarajevo Adil Zulfikarpašić)

In 2021, the Institute published the catalog Mersad Berber: A Gift to the Bosniak Institute – Adil Zulfikarpašić Foundation, in Bosnian and English.