The Awakening

The female nude in this fountain, the work of sculptor Dragomir Arambašić, was created in 1920 and exhibited across Europe. Among others, it received an award of the Salon of the Society of French Artists in Paris, as an art work of outstanding value. The fountain was installed in Kalemegdan in 1936, in front of the Art Pavilion ‘Cvijeta Zuzorić’. During World War II, the sculptural group was damaged, and in 1959 the central female figure was reconstructed and returned to the Pavilion’s forecourt, while the rest of the composition had to wait until 1980, when it was repaired and joined with the nude. The sculptor Dragan Arambašić studied art in Munich and Dresden, later specializing in Paris and Rome. His work also decorates the lobby of the National Assembly building – the sculpture titled ‘Defense’ represents the three peoples included in the population of the former kingdom: Serbs, Croats and Slovenians. If you take a walk around Dorćol, you can also see some of Arambašić’s sculptural work on the façades, especially on the houses in Gospodar Jevremova Street, where the artist himself lived and worked. Pay attention to the building at 47 Knez Mihailova Street, where sculptures representing Trade and Industry were also done by the same artist.