Vesna Barbić was born in Zagreb in 1925. She graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb University, having read art history, in 1951. Her first job was in the archives of the Museum of Arts and Crafts, where she worked while still ABD, and in the same year moved to the Museum of Modern Art in Dubrovnik to the position of curator and acting director. From 1955 she worked in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb. Her last working position was in the Meštrović Studio, in which she was employed from 1960 until her retirement. She closed her career with the rank of museum adviser.
She devoted a great deal of her working life to modern art, more precisely to the sculpture of Ivan Meštrović, whom she knew personally. She arranged the ambiental display in his dwelling and the Meštrović Studio.
From the first major exhibitions she put on, she picked out Facsimiles of Drawings from the Albertina, the Development of Drawing through the Centuries, and the interconnected production of paper. She particularly stressed the role of the auxiliary technical staff in museums, of whom no one wrote in publications, or spoke of at the opening of exhibitions, and yet are an important part of everyday work in the museum, especially when exhibitions are being mounted.
She was honoured for her work with the City of Zagreb Commendation, the "Pavao Ritter Vitezović" Prize of the Croatian Museum Association and for her lifetime’s achievement the decoration of the Order of the Croatian Daystar with the Figure of Marko Marulić.

NB. Data taken from the questionnaire, material taken from the Personnel Archives of the MDC, and from an interview recorded on January 22, 2002.