Jerka Hermina Ljubica Rojc ( ; 6 November 1883 – 6 November 1964), better known as Nasta Rojc, was a Croatian painter.
Born in Bjelovar, she was a sickly child and a misfit. She did not enjoy school or playing with other children, but liked both hunting and horse riding. After she declared in her youth that she was an atheist, her father had her educated in a convent school. Becoming depressed, she was sent to the seaside town of Kraljevica at fifteen, where she met a painter, Branko Šenoa, who inspired her to become an artist. Her father objected, but in exchange for her agreement to learn cooking, he allowed her to attend art school. She studied in Zagreb, Vienna, and Munich, learning to paint, sculpt, and engrave. When her father insisted she marry, Rojc who was a lesbian, entered a lavender marriage with Šenoa, after her father agreed to help her acquire a studio and assist with her living expenses.
From 1909 she exhibited works with the Croatian Art Society in Zagreb and was the first woman to have a solo exhibition at the Salon Ullrich. She participated in numerous exhibitions in the capitals of Eastern Europe until the onset of World War I. During the war she took commissions for portraits and worked on an autobiography. Around the same time, Rojc met a group of lesbians who had worked for the Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service during the war in Serbia and Sarajevo. After the war, the hospital personnel founded an orphanage in Bajina Bašta. One of them was a British peer, Alexandrina Onslow, who became Rojc's partner.
From 1923, they openly lived as a couple in a house Rojc had designed, which was shared with her husband until his death in 1939. Between 1924 and 1926, Rojc and Onslow lived in Scotland and England, where Rojc had a successful exhibition at the Gieves Art Gallery in London. Returning to Zagreb at the end of 1926, her work was derided by the critics. She exhibited with the Women's International Art Club in London until 1929, and was inspired to found the (Women Artists' Club) with Lina Virant Crnčić to promote the works of women artists. The group held eleven exhibitions between 1928 and 1940, in which she presented works of her own. When World War II broke out, the couple joined the resistance movement. They were reported to the Ustaše, arrested, sent to prison for several months in 1943, and were unable to reacquire their property until after the war ended. Rojc died in 1964, fourteen years after Onslow, with whom she was buried.
Rojc and her work were largely forgotten until the breakup of Yugoslavia. Almost immediately after Croatian independence a retrospective of her work was presented and scholars began evaluating Rojc's two autobiographies, her correspondence within her international lesbian network, and her photographic archive. It is rare that queer history in the region has had tangible documentation and the records that she left are seen as significant for both British and Yugoslavian lesbian history. Her paintings are held in many public and private collections including the Modern Gallery, Zagreb, the City Museum of Bjelovar, the Josip Kovačić Collection owned by the City of Zagreb, as well as the Croatian National Theater. In 2006 Rojc's likeness was featured on a postage stamp. Historian Leonida Kovač published a book analyzing Rojc's legacy in 2010, recognizing that it was innovative and pushed the boundaries of socio-cultural norms. Numerous retrospective exhibitions of her work have been held throughout Croatia; in 2017, fifty-three of her paintings were exhibited at the Palais Porcia, Vienna.
Early life and education Jerka Hermina Ljubica Rojc, known as Nasta, was born on 6 November 1883 in Bjelovar, Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia, Austria-Hungary, to Slava (née Blažić) and . Her siblings included Slavica, Ljerka, Slava, Vjera, Milan, and Vladimir, although both Slavica and Ljerka died as young children and were buried at the St. Andrew Cemetery of Bjelovar. Milan was a prominent lawyer, politician, and cultural figure who contributed to establishing secondary education in Croatia. Rojc attended elementary school in her home town. She was a sickly child and did not enjoy schooling or playing with other children, but was an avid horsewoman and hunter. After she had declared that she was an atheist, her father sent her to (Sacred Heart), an Ursuline monastery school in Graz. Rojc described the period as "torment". Experiencing rejection and little affection from her family, she became depressed and at fifteen was sent to the seaside town of Kraljevica to recuperate. While there she met the painter Branko Šenoa and their friendship spurred her interest in painting. Her father allowed her to return to Bjelovar where she attended the Realgymnasium of Bjelovar for two years, and began studying painting with . In 1901, she took painting lessons under Oton Iveković at his private school in Zagreb. The following year, Rojc moved to Vienna, Austria, and enrolled at the (Art School for Women and Girls). She also began taking courses at the photography school located on . Until 1904, she studied still life and plein-air landscape painting under Tina Blau, Ludwig Michalek, and Hans Tichy.
According to Rojc, her father did not support her desire to become a painter, so her schooling was often interrupted. She agreed to learn to cook provided her father paid for her art courses. While she was in Vienna, her father was appointed to a government post and the family relocated to Zagreb in 1906. The move was traumatic for Rojc, as she was forced to leave behind her horses. In 1907, she enrolled at the (Munich Women's Academy), where she studied with Adolf Höfer, Angelo Jank, and Heinrich Knirr. Simultaneously, she took lessons at the private school run by , where she met Miroslav Kraljević, among other painters who were part of what was known as the Munich Circle. Although she wanted to go to Paris, illness prevented her from doing so. Returning to the Vienna Art School for Women, in 1908 she began to study sculpture, copper engraving, and carving with Ludwig Michalek and . To continue her chosen career as a painter, Rojc agreed to marry Šenoa in 1910, on the condition that her father provided her with adequate living expenses and a studio. The marriage was in name only, as Rojc was a lesbian and had relationships with artist and opera soprano Milka Ternina. She also studied anatomy, perspective, portraiture and composition, before completing her studies in 1911 and returning to Zagreb.
Career Early (1909–1923)
Rojc began exhibiting in 1909, entering works in the annual of the (Croatian Art Society) in Zagreb, returning in both 1911 and 1913. In 1911, she became the first woman to have a solo exhibition at the Salon Ullrich. In 1912, she participated in the Yugoslav Spring Exhibit in Belgrade and the Vienna Art Salon. In 1913, Rojc illustrated Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić's first edition of the children's novel (The Brave Adventures of Lapitch). She returned to the Vienna Salon that year, and in 1914, organized an exhibition there focused on women's embroidered handicrafts from Petrinja and Zagreb, her own sculptures, and those of fellow sculptor . Her long-range goal was to create a series of exhibitions featuring works from women's folk art associations for Slavic artists in Ljubljana, Lviv, Prague, and other capitals of Eastern Europe. The outbreak of World War I halted her plans and instead she began doing studio work, painting portraits and working on an unpublished autobiography (Shadows, Light, and Darkness, 1918–1919). Her first commissioned portrait was of the actress Marija Ružička Strozzi in 1914. Rojc participated in a group exhibition at the Strossmayer Gallery of Old Masters in 1917, and held a solo exhibition in Zagreb in 1918. She also hung works in 1920 and 1921 in the exhibitions of the , the first artists' organization to be founded in Belgrade.
At the time, Rojc focused on both male and female nudes, painting such works as (Bather from Behind in the Garden of Hietzing near Vienna, 1904–05), (Women's Act of Prayer, 1907), , (Act of Woman Kneeling, 1908) and portraits of friends including Tanne Hernes (1907), Zoe Borelli (1909). She painted numerous self-portraits and became interested in portraying images of the New Woman. Rojc's self-portraits rejected the ideas of traditional femininity, focusing instead on androgyny. They are characterized as having an unusual psychological depth, giving the viewer a sense of the subject's loneliness, seriousness, and secret inner life which was not open to anyone else. According to scholars Vladimir Bjeličić and Dragana Stojanović, her (Self-Portrait with a Brush, 1910), is a challenge to the stereotype of "man-artist-genius", in which Rojc deliberately painted herself in a dark interior to convey her isolation, while holding the paintbrush in her left hand to confirm her non-conformity. She also painted herself dressed in men's clothing, in pieces like (Self-Portrait in a Hunting Suit, 1912) and (Me, the Fighter, 1914). Her initial landscapes presented a mix of neo-romantic and Symbolist painting styles, and were primarily panoramic images of Croatia, as in (Traveler, 1911), (Summer Storm, 1913), and (Coast Near Novi, 1914). In this period, she also produced small etchings, typically focused on the theme of sorrow. These included (Lighthouse Woman, 1907), (Music, Agony and Bookplate of Nasta Rojc – Self-Actions in the Jaws of a Cat, 1908) and (Embrace of Death, 1912)
War-time relationships During World War I a group of British suffragists, led by the Scottish doctor Elsie Inglis, came to the Balkan peninsula under the auspices of the Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service. As women were not allowed to serve as military personnel and were restricted to specialties in women and children's health, Inglis organized the Scottish Women's Hospitals to allow women to serve as ambulance drivers, cooks, doctors, nurses, and paramedics at the front. Turned down by the War Office, Inglis negotiated with allied governments and was allowed to establish hospitals, initially in France and in the Kingdom of Serbia. The first unit arrived in Serbia in December 1914 and by the spring of 1915, Evelina Haverfield was appointed as administrator of the unit. In turn, Haverfield brought her partner Vera Holme to organize the ambulance and transport services, overseeing both horses and motorized vehicles. Holme had been involved in theater before the war and was the chauffeur of Emmeline Pankhurst. She and Haverfield had a network of lesbian friends in the Scottish Women's Hospitals service.
When they were not working, the personnel organized sing-alongs, guessing games, and theatrical performances. When the Germany Army invaded Serbia, the Scottish Women's Hospital was forced to evacuate, but in 1916 and 1917, another unit operated in Dobrudja, Romania, where was stationed, after her previous service in Belgium and France. At the end of the war, Haverfield and Holme returned to Serbia and established an orphanage at Bajina Bašta. Inglis had died in 1917 and Haverfield died three years later. Onslow became the president of the Haverfield Fund for Serbian Children and joined Holme at Bajina Bašta through 1922. As they had during the war, in their off-hours the former workers of the Scottish Women's Hospitals met for social evenings and took sailing excursions in the Mediterranean Sea. On one such excursion in the Adriatic Sea, which probably occurred in 1919, Rojc and Onslow met. They began living together as a couple in 1923. Rojc designed and had built a house at 6 (), which had more studio space than living areas. They lived openly as a couple there, sharing the home with Rojc's husband until his death in 1939. It served as her art studio and a salon, in which other artists and writers, like Brlić-Mažuranić and Marija Jurić Zagorka gathered.
United Kingdom (1924–1926)