Biography
Zdenka Munk, born in 1912 in Graz, Austria, graduated from the Sisters of Mercy High School in Zagreb. She took a BA in art history at the Faculty of Philosophy of Zagreb University. From 1938 she worked as curator of the Museum of Arts and Crafts; that same year she went on a one year course in museology in Paris – Ecole du Louvre. After returning to the Museum of Arts and Crafts, she ran the inventory of the museum collections, brought a new kind of card index inventory into museum practice, put in order part of the textile collection, took part in the display of the ecclesiastical section of the museum.
From 1936 she was engaged with art criticism and wrote for many papers and journals. In early 1944, she went to the Partisans. At the end of the war she was appointed chief of the Museums and Conservation Institutes Department in the republic-level Education Ministry. She had an important role in organising the revived activity of museums and the network of monument conservation institutes in Croatia.
In 1948 she was appointed Conservator of the Republic Conservation Institute, and worked on the specialised treatment of moveable cultural monuments. She paid particular attention to private art collections in Zagreb, some of which were then opened to the public. She was particularly to be credited with the revitalisation of Trakošćan Castle and its transformation into a castle museum. In 1949 she was a Yugoslav government envoy for the restitution of cultural properties from Austria.
She returned to the Museum of Arts and Crafts in 1954 as director, and remained in that position for 25 years. From 1957 to 1962 she organised and oversaw the reconstruction and extension of the Museum and together with a Museum of Arts and Crafts expert team drew up the plan and conception for the new permanent display. In the renovated area she organised a number of new activities – big occasional exhibitions, concerts, workshops, lectures, fashion shows. She worked with the radio and television. She was extremely active and dedicated in the Museum Association of Croatia, the Federation of Museum Associations of Yugoslavia and the Association of Art Historians. From 1968 she taught in the post-graduate museology course. For many years she was a member of the executive committee of ICOM and president of the national ICOM committee; she died in Zagreb in 1986 at the age of 74.
NB: Information courtesy of Stanko Staničić (Museum of Arts and Crafts).
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