Vladimir Petković (art historian)
Vladimir R. Petković (30 September 1874 – 13 November 1956) was a Serbian art historian who helped start the scientific study of art history in Serbia. He was a professor at the University of Belgrade and directed major cultural institutions.
He was born in Donja Livadica, Serbia, and died in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. He finished school in several towns and completed high school in Kragujevac. He studied philology and history at the Grandes écoles in Belgrade (1893–1897) and did doctoral studies in Munich and Halle.
From 1900 to 1905 he worked as an assistant curator at the National Museum in Belgrade, and from 1905 to 1909 he taught part-time at the Faculty of Engineering. In 1911 he became a full professor at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade.
In 1919 he founded the Seminar for the History of Art, becoming associate professor that year and full professor in 1922. In the 1920s he led a National Museum of Serbia field project at Stobi.
Petković also did important organizational work. From 1921 to 1935 he was the director of the National Museum in Belgrade, and from 1947 to 1956 he directed the Archaeological Institute of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. He also edited Starinar (1931–1956) and was a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts and several European learned societies.
His main research was Serbian medieval art, especially fresco painting. He laid the foundations for scientific study of monumental heritage in Serbia. Through extensive fieldwork, he published many articles and monographs on monasteries, churches, and paintings in Serbia and Macedonia. He described the stylistic features of painting and noted distinct schools in Serbian medieval art. He was among the first to recognize the importance of late medieval monuments from the 16th and 17th centuries. He also worked as an archaeologist on sites like Stobi and Justiniana Prima.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 20:19 (CET).