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Outsider

When the celebrated and controversial painter Ilija Bašičević Bosilj (1895 – 1972) donated a collection of his paintings, two hundred and eighty-seven to be exact, and about fifty paintings by other naive artists from the country and the world, to his hometown of Šid, in 1970. In 2011, the Museum of Naive Art "Ilianum" was established.

Despite the numerous obstacles that Bosilj's works, as well as the artist himself, encountered, he is today ranked among the most famous masters of modern painting, due to his originality and authenticity. In addition to the fact that art history today most often classifies him among the contemporary creators of the 20th century. In the 19th century, some art historians attempted to define him as an art brut painter or as an outsider artist. Ilija Bašičević Bosilj has exhibited several times with greats such as Picasso, Chagall, Klee, Kandinsky and Schiele. Bosilje's works have traveled the world, spreading the word about the place in Srem, on the slopes of Fruška Gora, where he was born.

The cooperation between the Provincial Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments, Petrovaradin, and the Museum of Naive Art "Ilijanum" in Šid has been successfully implemented for a decade and a half. During 2023. In 2011, four works from "Ilianum" underwent conservation and restoration treatment:

"Three-Headed and the Fairy", "Pson-Headed" and "Saint Elijah" by Ilija Bosilj, as well as "The Beach" by Emeric Feješ.

Each painting underwent what was determined to be necessary by the Institute's experts through inspection and analysis, from preventive protection of the painted layer, microbiological analysis, mold neutralization, dry cleaning of the paper support, structural cleaning of the original support, removal of traces of glue, surface cleaning of the painted layer, lamination, transfer of the separated fragment from the glass to the original position, consolidation of the complete painted layer, retouching of the painted layer using the principle of inversion of the image on the glass, restoration of the glass support by gluing elements, surface cleaning of the decorative frame, placement in a decorative frame...