Dado (painter)

Miodrag Đurić (1933–2010), known as Dado, was a

Miodrag Đurić
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.

Contents
Early life and education (1933–1955)
Arrival in France and first exhibitions in Paris (1956–
1961)
Active years in France (1962–2010)
Painting and drawing
Engravings
Sculpture and ceramics
Collection books
Production design Miodrag Đurić (Dado) in the early 1970s
Digital works
Born Miodrag Đurić
Main exhibitions 4 October 1933
Dado in public collections Cetinje, Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Personal life (now Cetinje, Montenegro)
Bibliography Died 27 November 2010 (aged 77)
References Pontoise, France
Sources
Nationality Montenegrin
External links
Other names Dado (nickname)
Occupation Painter, engraver, sculptor
Early life and education (1933– Spouse(s) Carmen Lydia Đurić (Hessie)

1955) Children 5
Website https://www.dado.virtual.museum
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.[1]
Arrival in France and first exhibitions in Paris (1956–1961)
Encouraged by one of his teachers in Belgrade, Đurić moved to Paris, France, in 1956[1] 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. 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.

Active years in France (1962–2010)

Painting and drawing

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.

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.
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.

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
Oil painting on linen – untitled, 1997
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.

Engravings
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. Their collaboration continued until the 1990s.
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.

Sculpture and ceramics

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.[2]

In 1968, Dado exhibited a Citroën Traction Avant car in the CNAC, Paris. The
car wreck appearance was totally changed by a profusion of bones. Dado
returned mainly to sculpture in his last decade of creation. In 2009 and under the
auspices of Montenegro, a set of 27 sculptures Les Elégies Zorzi was exhibited Engraving on copper-plate – untitled,
in the Zorzi palace during the Venice Art Biennale.[3] 2004

From the mid-1990s to 2000,

the artist also explored the use of ceramics as a medium for his creation. A most
noticeable achievement in this field is a set of ceramics tiles in tribute to French
writer Irène Némirovsky.[4]

Collection books
A fervent books collector and reader, Dado found opportunities to work with
writers, poets or essayists, who most of time were friends of him. Having met
French writer Georges Perec, Dado illustrated Alphabets, a book dedicated to
word play (1976). After Georges Perec's death, Dado would work on a second
version of the book, mainly consisting in enriched illustrations of the first
version.

In 1985, he worked on a series of 9 dry-point engravings to illustrate Le Terrier

Temporary Installation of Sculptures by Franz Kafka, at the Lacourière-Frélaut workshop.[5]
by the artist, autumn 2010
In 1989, he illustrated Le Bonheur dans le crime by Barbey d'Aurevilly
published with the Imprimerie nationale. Two important collaborators of Dado
were the writers Claude Louis-Combet and Pierre Bettencourt. Bettencourt and Dado produced illustrated versions of Les plus
belles Phrases de la Langue française (1990), Voyage sur la Planète innommée(1990) and Les Négriers jaunes (1995).

Their collaboration started in 1984 when Pierre Bettencourt wrote a text for an exhibition catalogue of paintings inspired by
Buffon's work.[6] As a son of the teacher of biology, Dado was fascinated by natural science.

Claude Louis-Combet, a long-time friend, and Dado produced several books. Some of those texts were specifically written in
order to be published with illustrations of Dado. Including those is Les Oiseaux d'Irène (2007), a personal tribute of both artists to
writer Irène Némirovsky and Dadomorphes & Dadopathes, with 5 engravings by Dado, published with Deyrolles in 1992.

In the 2000s, Dado worked with Jean-Marc Rouillan with the publishing of Les Viscères polychromes de la Peste brune, 2009.[7]
Production design
In 1993, Dado took part to the production design of Handel's Tamerlano for the Badisches Staatstheater
Karlsruhe, direction Jean-Louis Martinoty, conductor Roy Goodman.
In 1996, Dado renewed his experience in production design with the world premiere of Llanto por Ignacio
Sanchez of Stavros Xarchakos, based on a poem by Lorca, direction Pierre Jourdan, in the Théatre Impérial de
Compiègne, France.

Digital works
Dado realizes his first digital collages from 1996 in the printing workshop of his sister, Marija. Some of these works will be
reproduced later in the Swiss art review Trou.[8]

Several digital collages based on photographs by Domingo Đurić were shown at the Venice Biennale in 2009. From 2007, Dado
devoted himself to the creation of a website with the help of his son-in-law, a virtual antimuseum, The Dado Syndrome.[9]

Thus, he created special works for the website. As a virtual museum, the website was granted by ICOM permission to use the top-
level domain .museum for its English version in 2010.[10] The site is trilingual: French/Montenegrin/English.

Main exhibitions
1958: Galerie Daniel Cordier, Paris
1960: Galerie Daniel Cordier, Frankfurt
1962: Galerie Daniel Cordier, New York
1967: Galerie André François Petit, Paris
1970: Retrospective exhibition, Centre National d'Art Contemporain, Paris
1971: Galerie Jeanne Bucher, Paris
1974: Aberbach Fine Arts Gallery, New-York
1980: Galerie Isy Brachot, Paris
1982: Atelier Lacourière-Frélaut, FIAC, Grand Palais, Paris
1984: Galerie Beaubourg, Paris
1987: Galleria Forni, Bologna, Italy
1990: Galerie Beaubourg, "Dado-Handel" exhibition, Paris
1995: Verica D&S art gallerie, Belgrade
2009: Palazzo Zorzi, Venice Art Biennale, Italy
2010: Shanghai World Exposition, Montenegro Pavilion, China
2011: Galerie Jeanne Bucher, Paris
2012: Kunsthalle, "Dado, Danse macabre", Düsseldorf
2015: Retrospective exhibition "Dado, Horama", Abbey of Auberive, France

Dado in public collections

Centre Pompidou, Musée national d'art moderne, Paris, France
Musée des Abattoirs, Toulouse, France[11]
Musée régional d'Art contemporain de la Région Languedoc-Roussillon[12]
MOMA, New York, United States

Personal life
Dado met his wife Hessie, a Cuban artist, during a trip to New York in 1962. Originally native of the Caribbean, she moved to
Hérouval and married him. They raised five children together.
Though staying most of the time in his secluded home, Dado occasionally left his place to feed his interest in the outer world. In
1984, he was made a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.[13]

Besides travelling several times to New York, he had a unique experience joining a team of medical researchers in Central Africa
in 1974, spending a month with the Pygmies of the Central African Republic rainforest. Other noticeable experiences were a
discovery of India in 1992 and a trip to Guatemala in 1997.

Influence of these trips is reflected in paintings such as the Boukoko triptyque (1974) and Tikal (1998).

Dado died at the age of 77 in Pontoise near Paris on November 27, 2010.

Bibliography
Jean-Louis Andral, Donations Daniel Cordier. Le regard d'un amateur, Paris, Centre Pompidou, 1989.
Alice Bellony-Rewald, "Dado", Colóquio, no. 15, December 1973
Alain Bosquet, Dado: un univers sans repos, Paris, La Différence, 1991
Daniel Cordier, Huit ans d'agitation, Paris, Galerie Daniel Cordier, 1964
Daniel Cordier, Georges Limbour, "Alii", Dado, œuvres de 1955 à 1964, Vence, Galerie Chave, 2004
Gilles Deleuze, André Descamps, "Alii", Dado Arras 1997. Exposition dédiée par l'artiste à Maximilien
Robespierre, Arras, Galerie Noroit-Arras, 1997
Christian Derouet, Dado: l'exaspération du trait, Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou, 1981–1982
Michel Faucher, Emmanuel Pernoud, Dado: gravures 1967/1997, Chartreuse Saint-Sauveur, Art-en-Chartreuse,
1997
Catherine Gaich, Alain Mousseigne, "Alii", Dado-Réquichot: La guerre des nerfs, Toulouse, Les Abattoirs, 2002

References
1. Bosquet 1991, pp. 273–277.
2. Bosquet 1991, pp. 293–95.
3. "Dado – Venice Biennial, a film by Pascal Szidon" (https://www.dado.virtual.museum/dado-artwork-biennale.php).
Dado.virtual.museum. Retrieved 3 January 2016.
4. "The Birds of Auschwitz – The virtual anti-museum of artist Dado" (https://www.dado.virtual.museum/dado-artwor
k-oiseaux.php). Dado.virtual.museum. Retrieved 3 January 2016.
5. Le Terrier; une lecture par Dado, dans la traduction de Alexandre Vialatte, éclaircissements et éclairages de
Philippe Audoin, note de Max Brod
6. Pierre Bettencourt, Dado. Buffon naturalisé, La Différence, Paris, 1988 ISBN 978-2-7291-0306-4
7. Les Viscères polychromes de la Peste brune, Jean Marc Rouillan Editions La Différence, 2009; ISBN 978-2-
7291-1845-7.
8. Trou, n° 14, 2004.
9. "The Dado Syndrome: The virtual anti-museum of artist Dado" (https://www.dado.virtual.museum).
Dado.virtual.museum. Retrieved 10 October 2017.
10. Catherine Millet, « En hommage à Dado », Art press n°375, p. 94
11. "Musée d'art moderne et contemporain à Toulouse, FRAC Midi-Pyrénées" (http://www.lesabattoirs.org) (in
French). Les Abattoirs. Retrieved 3 January 2016.
12. "Musée Sérignan d'Art Contemporain proche Montpellier - Musée régional d'art contemporain Languedoc-
Roussillon" (http://mrac.languedocroussillon.fr). Mrac.languedocroussillon.fr (in French). 29 May 2013. Retrieved
3 January 2016.
13. "Les années 1980 – Biographie – L'anti-musée virtuel de l'artiste Dado" (https://www.dado.fr/biographie-annees-1
980). Dado.fr. 25 January 2011. Retrieved 3 January 2016.
Sources
Alain Bosquet (1991). Dado: un univers sans repos (https://books.google.com/books?id=MakqAQAACAAJ). La
Différence. ISBN 978-2-7291-0693-5. (monograph)

External links
Media related to Dado at Wikimedia Commons
Official website (https://www.dado.virtual.museum)

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