PETROVIĆ Momčilo -Moma
PETROVIĆ Momčilo -Moma
Restorer, Conservator
(Prizren, 1934 – Novi Sad, 1999)
Finished the Secondary School of Applied Arts in Peć. Made study tours in Slovenia and Russia. Worked for the Provincial Institute for the Protection of Cultural Heritage of Vojvodina on conservation and restoration of engraved and goldplated items.
Was member of the Association of Applied Artsist of Vojvodina.
Although he lived and worked in Novi Sad for more than two decades, as a conservator and restorer, Petrovic's trouble was that he could not transport his works from town to town, because they were parts of walls or interior structures in more than 50 churches or monasteries, about ten galleries and museums, several ceremony halls and banks and in a number of ethnographically precious monuments. Who could ever count them all? The output is a huge life-long effort, patiently created man's achievement remindful of the ancient Chinese saying: "Only patience and time can transform mulberry leaves into silk". In the zenith of his carrier, he gave his craftsmanship to Chilandari, where he joined the company of great artists with golden hands, who had since Byzantine times been building the great, golden eternity of their culture. Thus, he enlisted himself among those who last forever.
Participated in a number of group exhibitions.
| During his life, people used to tell him that Nature possessed more wisdom than he did, and that it could create miracles that man could not even imagine. He was not one of those who could accept the elemental order of things around him. From his childhood, he had played with wood, the strange creature that lives, breathes and moves fifty, eighty, a hundred years after its death. He used to hold a chisel in his hands, to catch one moment of the nature and save it for eternity. Maiden name of wood was Nature, but when it was in his hands, the surname was Petrović. It was the essential meaning of Momčilo's work, materialized through hundreds of portals, iconostases, ancient fresco art, sculptures, or carvings that he created or restored. His exhibitions are monasteries, galleries and all the places he had been to holding a hammer and a chisel in his hands. |
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