Not much is known about Stefan Gavrilović today, even though he was a prolific painter and played an active role in the social and cultural rise of the Serbian people during the late 18th and early 19th century. That was precisely the transition period when the formative phase of many Serbian painters is marked by a clash between the Late Baroque tradition and the first hints of Classicism.
In a diary of the memories of his birthplace Mol, Novak Radonjić, a painter and writer, mentions Stefan Gavrilović among respectable and old Mol residents, allowing us to reasonably presume that Mol, in Bačka, was his birthplace. However, it is certain that he spent the greatest part of his intensive cultural activities as a citizen of Sremski Karlovci, where he held one of the last painter workshops, with which a long-standing tradition in this city was concluded.
His contemporaries often and most preferably called him “Stefan the wall painter”. He had a brother Ilija, a gilder and rich merchant, who was the closest collaborator in his artistic activities. The fact that he was a member of the Church Board of the Lower church in Karlovci speaks a lot about his prestige, and in 1791 he attended the inaugural meeting of the Karlovac Gymnasium with his brother Ilija, when the brothers donated two hundred florins each to its fund; between 1816 and 1820 he was a curator (custodian) of this Gymnasium.
It was noted that Dimitrije Đurkovic, Petar Nikolajević and Georgije Bakalović were learning the art of painting from him and that he was a great friend of Dositej Obradović, as evidenced by their frequent correspondence. He was also a contemporary of Theodor Ilić Češljar and Teodor Kračun, on whose stylistic and compositional solutions he sometimes relied on in his work.
In the beginning, he mostly did smaller orders by himself while working on iconostases with more experienced artists Grigorije Davidović Opšić and Jakov Orfelin.
Thus, in 1791 he concluded contract with the municipality of the village Bingula for painting of the Virgin’s throne, in which he was referred to only as the artisan and wall painter. In the following years, he worked on small jobs, mostly in Karlovac Lower church, in whose parish he lived.
At the end of 1794, he managed to negotiate an employment in this church to depict four icons on the fence between men’s and women’s narthex. Two of these icons represent Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary, and the other two are compositions, Christ and the Samaritan Woman, and Christ and the sinner. All are oval-shaped and framed by gilded carving.
The last two are now housed in the Gallery of Matica Srpska, in Novi Sad. Just judging by these small icons, Stefan Gavrilović belongs to a group of our most talented painters of the late 18th and early 19th century, considering his drawing technique, rich use of colors, the distribution of mass in space and the whole concept and the execution of painting in which a dramatic moment is recognized, accentuated by the attitude, gesture and grimace. His well known icons are also on the iconostases in Neštin (1796), Kuzmin (1797-1799), Jarak (1797), Sremska Kamenica (1800), Platičevo (1802-1804), Beočin 1803, Novi Bečej (1804), Jazak (1805), Petrovci (1806), Surčin (1807) and Bukovac (1810).
Painting work of Stefan Gavrilović was very extensive, but his entire artistic legacy consists mainly of works which illustrate religious motives. He made a large number of the iconostases, above all, in the churches across Srem, many of which were later partially or fully repainted, while a few suffered only some retouching. The rest of his works has been preserved, unfortunately, in very small numbers. Some of them are Portrait of Metropolitan Mojsej Putnik (Gallery of Matica Srpska) and Flag of Karađorđe with representations of Stefan the First Crowned and Serbian coat of arms, dating from 1804 (Historical Museum of Serbia in Belgrade).
Stefan Gavrilović was very receptive spirit, with a keen sense of the painting, and it is no wonder he was thrilled, as observed by his researchers, by Teodor Kračun’s movement of paintbrush and the iconographic parallels to Gavrilović’s painting are closest, predominantly, to the traditions of Bolognese painters of the early Baroque, which were introduced to the Serbian painters of the 18th century through the engravings by foreign masters.
For details about the life and work of Stefan Gavrilovic, see: O. Bataveljić, “Painting work of Stefan Gavrilović”, Journal of the National Museum in Belgrade V, Belgrade MCMLXVII, pp. 409-415; Fr. Bataveljić, “A Few Documents about the Painter Stefan Gavrilović”, Journal of Matica Srpska Vol. 9, Novi Sad, 1954. pp. 139-146; Z. Simić-Milovanović, “About the painter Stefan Gavrilović”, Starinar X-XI, Belgrade 1935-1936. pp. 114-123; N. Kusovac, Classicism among the Serbs - a Directory of Religious Paintings and Applied Arts, Vol. VI, Belgrade MCMLXVII. p. 94; O. Milanović-Jović, “The Iconostasis of the Church of St. Nicholas in Novi Bečej”, Collection of Fine Arts 7, Novi Sad, 1971; D. Medaković, Serbian Art in the 18th Century, Belgrade, 1980. pp. 141-143; B. Todić, Papers on Serbian Art and Artists of the 18th Century: by Archival and Other Information, Gallery of Matica Srpska, Novi Sad, 2010. pp. 475-482; B. Todić, Serbian Painters from the 14th to the 18th Century, the Provincial Institute for Protection of Cultural Monuments, Platoneum, Novi Sad, 2013. pp. 139-140; M. Timotijević, Serbian Baroque Painting, Novi Sad, 1996.
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