The Father Bernardin Sokol OFM Gallery

The gallery is open from May 1 st to October 1 st from 10 until 18 o’clock.

The art gallery “Father Bernardin Sokol OFM” was opened on the island of Badija on September 17 th , 2019. Croatian artists Emilija Karlavaris and Izvor Oreb presented the Franciscan monastery the Ascension of the Blessed Virgin Mary on Badija with a valuable artistic donation of their visual and sculptural works which make up the permanent collection of the gallery. Within the walls of the Franciscan monastery, these donated works have found the ideal spatial framework in which they attain their full meaning and with which they form a harmonious whole. All the creative and spiritual aspirations of these two hardworking and self-sacrificing artists can be found in their work. For decades they have shared a human and artistic fate while building their artistic path between the sun-drenched Mediterranean and the Croatian continent, between the everyday human experience and the religious.

Emilija Karlavaris was born December 28 th , 1952, in Rijeka. She finished the Pedagogical High School in Rijeka in 1971 and studied at the Pedagogical Academy in Rijeka. In 1977 she graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb with a degree in Sculpture under Professor Valerije Michieli. She has been exhibiting her work both individually and collectively since 1976. Since her first public exhibitions, this artist has confirmed herself as a miniature master. In the medium of sculpture, she has created impressive portraits, heads and faces of famous historical figures and her contemporar