Tošo Dabac was a Croatian worldwide known photographer and an indispensable figure in Croatian modern art. He loved life, observing people and their history. His story began at the beginning of the 20th century in the small village of Nova Rača. At the age of eleven, he moved to Samobor, and later attended the Classical Gymnasium in Zagreb. During that time, in 1925, his oldest preserved photograph titled Panorama Samobora was created. After gymnasium, he started studying law but abandoned it to pursue filmmaking, which could be seen as an indication of his future endeavors. Perhaps that was the reason for purchasing his first camera at the age of 22. He soon became one of the most important chroniclers of the years of crisis, poverty, and unemployment. In the 1930s, he decided to become a professional photographer. His mother considered this job indecent, but it did not deter him.
A year after his decision, at the Second Photography Salon at the Pennsylvania Museum, his name was listed alongside internationally renowned names such as T. L. Feininger, H. Cartier-Bresson, L. Moholy-Nagy, and others. The world Tošo conveyed through his photographs was simultaneously beautiful and unpleasant. He belonged to people who valued a free and open life, and he skillfully captured them with his lens. When shooting photographs with people present, he always waited for the figure to enter his composition first to mark the moment of shooting. His focus of interest was the feelings and soul of a person, which is precisely what touches us about him. The 1930s were the most significant years of Tošo Dabac's life. During that period, he obtained a master craftsman´s certificate in the photography trade and became a correspondent for London, Berlin, and Paris news agencies. In 1937, American Photography awarded him a prize, and the following year, he was a triple winner of the Camera Craft's Photograph of the Month award. Tošo's photographs were published in prestigious magazines such as Life, Paris-Match, or Berliner Illustrierte, magazines that world-renowned photographers dreamt of having their works published in.
During World War II, T. Dabac, together with Marijan Szabo, opened a new studio at Ilica 17 in Zagreb. Out of love for Zagreb, in 1943, he published a book about the city titled Metropola Hrvata (Metropolis of Croats). Zagreb became his unlimited source of inspiration. He examined it from various angles. His attention was mostly turned towards people with a lower social status. The title of Master of Photography was given to him in 1952 after the International Federation of Photographic Art proclaimed him an honorary member. Unfortunately, even though people called him nice names like the most important Croatian photographer or master of photography, only one retrospective exhibition was held and it was towards the end of his life in 1968. He died only a few days before his sixty-third birthday and the studio was taken over by his nephew, Petar Dabac. Today, the Museum of Contemporary Art houses the Tošo Dabac Archive with the collection of about two thousand photographic negatives and photographs connected to Zagreb. From his death till today, the Archive has been a place where plenty of photography and art lovers meet. With the exhibition in Paris in 1992 it was officially confirmed what we had known before, namely that Tošo Dabac is a part of the world photographic heritage.
Works cited:
Knapp, P. 1994. Introduction. In Tošo Dabac: Zagreb tridesetih godina: Zagreb in the Thirties: Zagreb des années trente: Zagreb in den 30er Jahren. Zagreb: Muzej suvremene umjetnosti, Arhiv Tošo Dabac, pp. 7-13.
Prosoli, I. 2020. Introduction. In Tošo Dabac: Umjetnik svojeg vremena – kritičko čitanje. Zagreb: Muzej za Umjetnost i obrt, Školska knjiga, p. 11.
Prosoli, I. 2020. Tko je Tošo Dabac?. In Tošo Dabac: Umjetnik svojeg vremena – kritičko čitanje. Zagreb: Muzej za umjetnost i obrt, Školska knjiga, pp. 12-13.
Translated by Filip Starinec and Helena Derdić, 4.E grade of Electronics technician educational program, school year 2023/2024