Friderika Slavomira Olga Rakaj, better known as Slava Rakaj, is largely regarded as the greatest watercolorist to emerge from Croatia in the early nineteenth century. She had a brief but prolific career and is frequently studied by modern artists. Her art allowed her to communicate with her family in certain ways when she was younger, despite the fact that she was deaf. She did learn to speak later in life, but only at a rudimentary level and with difficulty. Despite the fact that many people refused to teach her, Rakaj eventually studied under Bela iko Sesija, the founder of the Zagreb Academy of Fine Arts. She also studied in Vienna, where she learnt to read French and German in addition to painting classes. She went throughout Europe after finishing her education, presenting her paintings in a variety of shows. Her paintings were one-of-a-kind at the time because of their topics, which included popular still lifes with unusual object pairings. Two chickens were tied down in a basket adjacent to their eggs, for example. They also used darker colors than were popular at the time among artists. She began painting outside scenery later in life, which would become her most famous works. Despite the fact that she lived for only 29 years, her paintings are highly valued today and fetch record auction prices.
Childhood and Adolescence
She was born in Ozalj, Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia, Austria–Hungary, on January 2, 1877. Olga’s mother, who was also a painter, worked at the local post office as an administrator. Her father, Vjekoslav, worked as a local administrator, putting the family in the upper middle class of Croatia.
Paula, her younger sister, also learnt to paint from her mother and went on to become a school teacher in Orahovica.
Her family enrolled her at a Vienna-based deaf school when she was eight years old, in 1885.
Rakaj, who was born deaf, stayed to herself because popular thought at the time was that all deaf people were psychologically ill. Her artistic ability set her apart from her contemporaries and drew the attention of all of her teachers.
Career of Slava Raškaj
She took her first drawing lesson in Vienna in 1892, and completed a modest pair of ink drawings named ‘Armor and Weapons I and II.’ She learned watercolor painting and the Gouache technique, an Italian opaque oil painting medium, at this time.
When she returned from Vienna in 1895, she was 15 years old, and her local schoolteacher, Ivan Muha-Otoi, insisted that her family send her to Zagreb to train with Vlaho Bukovac. Bukovac refused to instruct a woman, let alone a deaf lady, after landing in Zagreb.
Isidor Krnjavi invited her to study at the Zagreb Institute for the Deaf, where she established her first studio.
The well-known symbology In 1896, Croatian painter Bela iko Sesija recognized her talent and began training her at Zagreb’s Academy of Fine Arts.
She studied craft drawing and technique with John Bauer and Stephen Hribar from 1896 to 1897.
In 1885, she began painting still lifes, but they were frequently unusual or mismatched, such as an owl next to a crimson rose or a crab with a fan. A starfish and a silver jewelry cabinet were also painted by her.
‘Impatient in my Studio,’ a watercolor painting depicting a little child who also lived at the Zagreb Institute for the Deaf, was painted in 1897.
While staying at the Zagreb Institute for the Deaf in 1898, she created one of her most renowned paintings, a self-portrait.
‘Water Lilies in the Botanical Garden’ was painted outside at the Zagreb Botanical Garden in 1899. Other paintings depicted Maksimir Park as well as other parts of the city.
From 1898 to 1900, she painted ‘Spring in Ozalj,’ ‘Winter Landscape,’ ‘Early Spring,’ and ‘Lotus for my Parents,’ which would become her most recognized and priceless works.
She started painting darker, more isolated environments around 1900, as seen by her iconic paintings ‘The Old Mill’ and ‘Dead Nature.’
Major Projects of Slava Raškaj
Her watercolor paintings were first displayed in public in 1898 at the newly opened Art Pavillion in Zagreb, among works by other renowned painters of the time, including Menci Klement Crni and Vlaho Bukovac.
Her works were shown in Saint Petersburg and Moscow in 1900.
Five of her works were on display at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900.
Achievements & Awards
The Zagreb Education Centre for the Deaf and Dumb was renamed The Slava Rakaj Education Center after her death.
As part of their Famous Croatian Women series, the Croatian National Bank issued a commemorative silver coin with her visage imprinted on it in 2000.
Personal History and Legacy
She first showed signs of clinical depression in 1900, and was briefly hospitalized before returning to her family’s house. She did not recover and was taken to the Stenjevec Psychiatric Hospital with violence and psychological disorders in 1903.
She caught TB in 1905 and had to stop painting completely. She died at the age of 29 on March 29, 1906.
She was laid to rest outside the Stenjevec Psychiatric Hospital on the Parish church lot. Her ashes were moved to the St. Vid Church in Ozalj in 1990.
‘100 Minutes of Glory,’ a Croatian drama on the life of Slava Rakaj, was released in 2004 by director Dalibor Matanic.
Trivia
Two of her eight-year-old drawings have survived and are on exhibit at the Croatian School Museum in Zagreb’s Marshal Tito Square.
Isidor Krnjavi disguised the expense of her painting materials in the government budget while studying at the Zagreb Institute for the Deaf.
She established up an art studio in a vacant room at the Zagreb morgue while studying with Sesija in 1896.
A huge number of fake Rakaj paintings were released in Ozalj in 1996. Twenty of these paintings were discovered in 2000 using pigment and paper tests. Over 400 fake paintings have been removed from the market as of 2014.
Slava Raskaj Net Worth
Slava is one of the wealthiest painters, as well as one of the most popular. Slava Raskaj’s net worth is estimated to be $1.5 million, according to Wikipedia, Forbes, and Business Insider.