Aleksandar Deroko, a scholar, artist, educator, renaissance intellectual, with a broad spectre of interests, creator of infinite work energy, soldier, sportsman, an eminent figure of Belgrade of that time, a great charmer was a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts from 1955.
Having been involved in the work of the Department of Fine Arts and Music, he cooperated with artists-academicians who participated in the establishment of the SASA Gallery and Art Collection characterization, thus also giving a significant contribution to this area of Academy’s activities.
At a time when other SASA members-painters donated their works to the Academy’s collection, Aleksandar Deroko outlined the proposal to his friend, Academician Pavle Savić, SASA president, to donate his paintings and drawings to SASA, which resulted in Savić’s initiative for the SASA Gallery to organize an exhibition of Aleksandar Deroko’s works in 1980, at the Gallery of Cultural Centre (since there were on-going construction works and refurbishment at the SASA Gallery). Pleased with this exhibition, Deroko donated 129 his works to the SASA Art Collection in 1984 – along with 19 paintings the ensemble also encompasses 110 drawings, sketches and studies.
Almost a decade after the artist’s death – in 1997, eleven more drawings of Aleksandar Deroko were donated to the Academy’s Collection by his younger colleague and associate, architect Slobodan Nenadović, therefore, nowadays SASA holds in its possession 140 works of Deroko.
Now, for the first time at the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, after four decades, SASA Gallery presents to the public selected works of Aleksandar Deroko from the SASA Art Collection.
This retrospective, mainly envisaged by Deroko himself, represents a memory of the artist and gratitude to the benefactor, one of the academicians – visual artists whose legacies became the heart of the Art Collection of SASA on which it has been developing to this day.
At the same time, the exhibition serves as an announcement for the upcoming major retrospective exhibition which SASA is preparing for its member in cooperation with the Faculty of Architecture in Belgrade and numerous other institutions.
The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts acknowledges gratitude for its financial support to the Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Serbia and the Secretariat for Culture, City of Belgrade.

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