УMETНOСT ЗAПAДНE AФРИКE – ИЗЛОЖБА КОЈА ЈЕ ПРОМЕНИЛА ГРАД
THE ART OF WEST AFRICA – AN EXHIBITION THAT CHANGED THE CITY

Summary/Abstract: During their residence in African countries, where Zdravko worked as a journalist and a diplomat, Mr. and Mrs. Pečar formed a collection of African traditional objects, with an intention of making a donation to their home country. In January 1973, Dr. Zdravko and Veda Pečar brought the items to Belgrade, where the city administration officially accepted the gift collection, and the Ethnographic Museum was assigned with its care and management. Jelena Arandjelović Lazić, as a Senior Curator of this Museum, continued to manage the collection and planned organization of an exhibition that would present the African material and enable it to be valorized by the professionals and cultural public. The exhibition also aimed to guide the city officials to financially support the idea of a permanent exhibition of this collection at the new Museum of African Art, which was yet to be built and formed. The exhibition “Art of West Africa – the Collection by Veda and Dr. Zdravko Pečar, a gift to Belgrade”, with 430 exhibited items, opened on April 26th 1973 and received significant publicity. The exhibition lasted for a year and fulfilled its goal: all procedures for valorization of the subject were completed and the establishment and construction of the Museum of African Art in Belgrade was approved. The exhibition “Art of West Africa” at the Ethnographic Museum, where the Pečars’ collection was presented to the public for the first time, enabled Belgrade to acquire a unique Museum of African Art in 1977 – the Collection by Veda and Dr. Zdravko Pečar, which for many subsequent years continued to provide visitors with the possibility to meet the cultures of the peoples of a distant continent, testifying about the friendship of Yugoslavia with the countries of Africa. This exhibition also influenced the further course of the professional lives of its creators. Jelena Aranđelović Lazić continued to exclusively study African culture, and she also got the opportunity to take over the leading position of the newly established Museum of African Art, where she remained until her retirement. After the exhibition, Veda and Dr. Zdravko Pečar intensified their collecting activities and brought hundreds of new items for the new Museum. They also received the status of Advisors to the Museum of African Art, to which they remained committed for the rest of their lives.

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