Marko Šuštaršič was one of the most prominent postwar modernist artists in Slovenia, as well as Yugoslavia as a whole. After the war, he studied painting at the newly established Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana, developing an easily recognizable artistic expression that underwent a number of permutations over the decades.
The painting Document on the Pohorje Battalion is from his creative period between 1958 and 1962, when his personal style was already fully developed. This phase in his art is marked by large monochromatic (most often red) planes with floating figures – individual or in groups – positioned in front of them. While a lot of Šuštaršič’s art of the time is based on associative imagery, dreams, and fantasies, this particular painting has a specific historical background.
Thematically, it refers to World War II and the Pohorje Battalion, which in January 1943 resisted overwhelming German troops, holding out until the last of its fighters was killed. The artist felt particularly close to this tragic story, since he had himself joined the Partisans in Serbia, where his family had been exiled from Slovenia during the war.
There are two versions of this painting, with the earlier one now included in the collection of the Military Museum in Belgrade. Both paintings were made for a series of statewide traveling exhibitions dedicated to the National Liberation Struggle in Yugoslav art. What is especially striking is the small, delicate head and shoulders portraits of the fighters, including the members of the women’s company of the battalion. Formally, the painting is a representative work in the colors of the Yugoslav tricolor and following a distinct symmetry. In addition to the portraits, floral motifs, red stars, and other decorative elements are arranged across the surface. The composition is made dynamic with horizontal curving lines, reminiscent of ornamental scrollwork on wardrobes, chests or cartouches, which is the artist’s way of subtly connecting a memory of the past with the tradition of folk art.
