Antonija Bauer was born in Zagreb in 1913. Her family was from Gradišce (Austria) by descent. Her father was the fifteenth child in the family, and lived to begin with in Varaždin. Her father’s older brother was Dr Antun Bauer, Archbishop of Zagreb (his name and surname being the same as that of her husband). She graduated at the Law Faculty of Zagreb University, but never worked in the law. In 1945 she enrolled in art history and archaeology at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb, became ABD, but did not take a degree.
In 1952 she worked as a librarian in the Plaster Casts Collection. Together with her husband Antun Bauer and with associates she produced the Art History and Similar Disciplines Bibliography, 33 vols, copies of which are kept in today’s Glyptotheque, the Fine Arts Archives of the Croatian Academy and the MDC Library. With Antun Bauer, the founder of MDC, she worked as art historian and saw to technical matters related to the Plaster Cast Collection, in the Plaster Cast Collection. From 1953 she worked as librarian in the Law Faculty, and took a doctorate in library science, going on to work until she retired in 1973. She wrote for the MDC a piece about her 60 years of work and life together with Antun Bauer, in which she talks of the coincidence of their names and surnames, as well as of their interests, which resulted in 60 years of marriage and professional collaboration. Antonija Bauer died on December 26, 2003, in her 90th year.

NB. Data taken from the questionnaire, material taken from the Personnel Archives of the MDC, and from an interview recorded on June 7, 2002.