Milena Pavlović-Barili

• Name — Milena Pavlovic-Barili • Born — 5 November 1909 • Birthplace — Požarevac, Serbia • Died — 6 March 1945 • Place of death — New York City, U.S. • Field — Painting

• Illustration — Coat of arms of the Barili family • Illustration — Danica Barili, painted by Cecrope Barilli Her Italian father, Bruno Barilli, was an influential composer, elder son of Cecrope Barilli, director of the Parmesan Academy of Fine Arts and a member of a noted artistic Barilli family. Her paternal uncle was Latino Barilli, himself a prominent Italian painter. Milena's Serbian mother, Danica Pavlović-Barili (1883–1965), a descendant of Karađorđe Petrović, Serbian revolutionary leader and founder of the House of Karađorđević, ruling family of the Kingdom of Serbia and later Kingdom of Yugoslavia, has served as lady in waiting to Queen Maria of Yugoslavia and was tasked with improving her Serbian language. She was also appointed as superintendent at the court of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia, who was her second cousin once removed. Danica also had artistic talent and studied art in Munich, where she met her husband Bruno Barilli in 1905, an Italian actor and music composer, whom she married in an Orthodox ceremony 4 years later in the city of Požarevac. Milena studied at the Royal School of Arts in Belgrade, Kingdom of Yugoslavia (1922–1926) and in Munich (1926–1928). In the early 1930s, she left Serbia and returned only for brief visits until the outbreak of World War II. During her stays in Spain, Rome, Paris and London, where she socialised with Jean Cocteau and André Breton, she was influenced by many western schools and artists, notably Giorgio de Chirico. After 1939, she lived and worked in New York where her career peaked as an illustrator for Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and other publications under the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency. In 1941, she appeared in the Twentieth Annual of Advertising Art, and before her death, she was commissioned to design costumes for Gian Carlo Menotti's ballet Sebastian and a production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream; these were never completed. She died of a heart attack at the age of 35, having sustained serious injuries in a horse-riding accident the previous summer. She was cremated, according to her American husband's wishes, and buried in a cemetery in Rome. The topics of her work varied from portraits to imaginative interpretations of biblical stories. The motifs often included dream-like situations, veils, angels, statues of Venus, and Harlequins. Many of her works are parts of permanent exhibitions in Rome, New York City, Museum of Contemporary Art (Belgrade), and her hometown of Požarevac, where the house in which she was born has been converted into a museum in her honor. In 1943, Pavlović-Barili's work was included in Peggy Guggenheim's show Exhibition by 31 Women at the Art of This Century gallery in New York.

Performance • Milena ZeVu, ‘Milena’ homage to the Serbian artist Milena Pavlovic Barilli (1909-1945), House of Jevrem Grujic, March 2019, Belgrade, Serbia

• Illustration — Portrait of Milena's father, Bruno Barili (1938) • Illustration — Self-portrait, 1938 • Illustration — Self-portrait, 1939 • Illustration — Nude with mirror • Illustration — Hot Pink with Cool Grey, 1940 • Illustration — Front pages of "Vogue" magazine and one of the dresses that Milena created • Illustration — Posthumous casting of Milena's hands • Illustration — Milena with the portrait of her relative King Peter II, New York (1942) • Illustration — Milena's parents Bruno and Danica • Illustration — Milena as a child with her parents and maternal grandparents • Illustration — Pavlović-Barili Gallery in Požarevac

Milena Pavlović-Barili is recorded as having studied at Academy of Fine Arts, Belgrade and Požarevac Gymnasium.