Igor Zidić was born in 1939 in Split. He attended classics high school in Split, and took a BA (art history) and comparative literature from the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb in 1964. He was secretary of the Matica Hrvatska from 1966-1968; editor of the magazine Život umjetnosti. He launched and managed the first thirteen numbers of the journal Hrvatski tjednik. He was editor of the journal Kolo. From 1972 he worked as an editor in the Matica Hrvatska publishing institute. He went as director to the Modern Gallery in 1989.
He has written a number of monographs: Miljenko Stančić, 1979; Matko Trebotić, 1981; Hrvoje Šercar, 1984 and has authored forewords to catalogues of Emanuel Vidović, 1971; The Erotic in Modern Croatian Art, 1977; Petar Dobrović, 1990.
He publishes studies on recent Croatian art. Zidić has twice been selector of the Croatian section at the Venice Biennale (1993, 1995). He published books of poems Tkalac na propuhu (1972) and a collection of essays Granica i obostrano - studije i ogledi o hrvatskoj umjetnosti 20. stoljeća, 1996.
His major achievements include the reconstruction and renovation of the premises and the new permanent display of the Modern Gallery. He has prepared many monograph and retrospective exhibitions.
For his work he has been awarded the Belgrade Youth Prize, Zagreb Salon Prize for a film about Emanuel Vidović, the Tin Ujević Literature Prize, and the Order of the Croatian Daystar with 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 February 3, 2003.