NSK Print Collection

The Print Collection of NSK, the National and University Library in Zagreb, assembles artistic non-book material dating from the 15^th century to the present day. Operating as a-museum-within-a-library, it is the largest collection of its kind in Croatia and one of the most valuable.

Holdings

The Collection holds artwork created on paper by Croatian and world-famous artists including drawings, prints, print portfolios, art posters and postcards.

Croatian artists

Resources in the Collection include works by Croatian renowned 16^th-century artists Julije Klović, Andrija Medulić and Martin Rota Kolunić.

Its treasures also include artwork by the great 19^th-century painters Hugo Conrad von Hötzendorf, Ivan Zasche, Vlaho Bukovac, Celestin Medović and Oton Iveković.

However, most of the works that the Collection holds are by 20^th-century artists, such as Ljubo Babić, Tomislav Krizman, Menci Clement Crnčić, Miroslav Kraljević, Vilko Gecan, Marijan Trepše, Sergije Glumac, Anka Krizmanić, Andrija Maurović, Miroslav Šutej, Edo Murtić, Jadranka Fatur, Nives Kavurić Kurtović and many others.

Greats of world art

Some of the Collection’s greatest treasures are prints and drawings by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, George Grosz, Oskar Kokoschka, Käthe Kollwitz and Max Pechstein, including a poster by Pablo Picasso.

Print portfolios and artists’ books

Also assembling print portfolios and artists’ books bringing together graphic art and the art of words, the Collection holds the largest assemblage of print portfolios in Croatia, including the titles of The Biškupić Collection (Zbirka Biškupić), which comprises over one hundred print portfolios created during a fifty-year period.

Posters

Postcards

Featuring Croatia’s vistas and the famous panoramas around the world, interesting ethnographic details and people of the past, the Collection’s postcards date from the beginning of the 19^th century to the present day.

The Collection’s oldest treasure

Published in 1493 in Nuremberg by German physician and humanist Hartmann Schedel, Gebenna, a woodcut depicting Geneva, is the Collection’s oldest item.

Reference collection

The Collection’s reading room makes available an extensive collection of various reference works that may be consulted in the Collection’s reading room.

Digital resources 

The Collection’s digitised resources are available on the NSK Digital Collections and NSK Digitised Visual Material websites. 

Access to collection items 

Owing to their great value and the need for careful handling, resources in the Collection may only be consulted in the Collection’s reading room.

The Collection’s resources may be digitised upon request, for research purposes only. Digitisation requests may be submitted by filling out a request form and emailing it at grafzbirka@nsk.hr or in person, in the Collection’s reading room. 

Reference works available in the Collection’s reading room may be freely consulted without a prior request during the Collection’s opening hours. 

Exhibitions and publications

Apart from being presented on the NSK Online Exhibitions website, the Collection’s treasures are frequently featured as part of physical exhibitions in Croatia and abroad and spotlighted through art monographs that the Collection regularly publishes.

• A Marvellous Journey with Fischer von Erlach (2023)
• Croatia: Ten poets (2020)
• From Klović and Rembrandt to Warhol and Picelj (2009)
• Collection Biškupić. Collector’s Editions (2002)