Slava Raškaj
Slava Raškaj (Slava=glory in Croatian language) was an artist considered to be one of the first Croatian watercolourists was born on January 2 1877 in Ozalj, Croatia. Born in the family of the local administrator Vjekoslava and Olga Raškaj. Until the age of seven she lived with her family. Being deaf since born, due to the difficulties in communication, she gradually withdrew from people, but not before her talent was noticed.
Youth
Until the age of fifteen, (1885 - 1893), she lived in an institution for deaf children in Vienna, Austria. Under the influence of an art instructor she kept developing in the area of painting and drawing. Back home, in 1895, persuaded by the local teacher in Ozalj, (Ivana Otoić-Muha), she left for Zagreb to attend the art school. In 1896 her instructor was painter Bela Čikoš-Sesija. Slava's repertoire was peculiar - dark shades of dead nature, guash, and watercolour paintings containing strange objects as the sea star, silver jewelry chest, and even more interesting, the pairs of objects as a red rose and an owl,or a lobster and a fan.
Independent artist
Mrs. Otoić helped her to open her own atelier. It was the small, white painted room, once the mortuary. Her first aquarel was done there and most probably today's famous self portrait from the year 1898. Next year, the actress spent at home in Ozalj, wandering in the nature, drawing the landscapes, perfecting her favoured medium technique, enrieching them with her already unique and distinguish style and sensitivity. Her works has been exhibited since1898 in art pavillions of Zagreb, Moscow, and Saint Petersburg. It was the best part of her short career when most valuable works, (“Stablo u snijegu”, “Rano proljeće”, “Proljeće u Ozlju”, “Zimski pejsaž”, “Lopoči”, (lopoč= water-lilly) were done.
Soon, unfortunate first symptoms of the disease started to show up - loneliness, alienation, need for privacy and nature. Old abandoned mills, depth of the kanyon of Kupa river, ruins started to be the focus of her mind. In 1902, due to chronic depression, aggression and other psychological symptoms she was institutionalised. She died March 29, 1906.