Musicologists Portrait
Jovan Mihailović is a Serbian and American musician, artist and writer.
Jovan Mihailović was born and raised in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, where he and his family survived the Nazi occupation and the transition to communism. From a young age, he demonstrated artistic ability and began to draw, paint and play the violin. He studied at the Belgrade Theater Academy, worked as a playwright in Yugoslavia and traveled throughout Western Europe as a folk musician before immigrating to Sweden, Canada and finally Chicago in 1971.
Jovan was an active member of Chicago's creative community for four decades, writing dozens of novels, plays, and short stories, as well as performing music in restaurants and cafes. He also created many hundreds of drawings and paintings that are full of emotionally intense images from the artist's mystical universe of beauty.
Felipe Orlando, full name Juan de Dios Felipe Orlando García Murciano, was a Spanish-Cuban artist who lived in Spain and devoted himself to writing for a living through painting. He was an anthropologist by training and a musicologist by hobby.
Belonging to the artistic avant-garde movement that emerged in the 1930s, it is difficult to place his painting in the mainstream of young modernists.
Felipe Orlando's painting is characterised by a constant development. It begins with paintings that could be called figurative. They are usually always interior scenes in which women, Afro-Cubans or still lifes take centre stage.
After moving to Spain, his painting develops towards abstraction, especially the informal current, but always presents some figurative reference. Serenity and lyricism prevail in the textures. The titles are suggestive and colour is more important than form.