Tribute to America

This documentary is about the “best frescoes on North American ground” by the American-Croatian painter Maksimilijan Vanka. Vanka was a member of the Group of Four. Love for the daughter of a New York physician, Margaretta Stetten, took him in 1934 to America. For the Croatian public, regardless of the fact that the American press dedicated to him the most space of all Croatian artists, he gradually became lost. Grgo Gamulin felt that with his going away, Vanka was lost to Croatian art and culture. His life work, a tribute to  heaven and earth, surely are monumental frescoes in Croatian Catholic Church of St. Nicholas in Millvale, suburb of Pittsburgh. He painted them in 1937 and finished in 1941. Vanka’s frescoes are considered the “altar of American immigration, Croatian and entire diaspora”.

Tribute to America , 2008
Written and directed by: Mladen Juran
Produced by: Ivan Maloča
Director of photography: Željko Sarić
Editor: Kruno Kušec

Duration: 30'