Ilija Vitolić was born on August 4th, 1930, in Belgrade  Serbia. On his mother’s side the family tree reaches all the  way to Karađorđe, the legendary Serbian leader and free  dom fighter. His childhood and early teenage years were marked by  terrifying impressions of World War II and the early death  of his eight-years-older brother. Due to precarious financial circumstances after the war, he  was unable to obtain a proper education in fine arts, so he  had to master his artistic skills on his own.   Besides administrative jobs in several Yugoslav companies  he intensely occupied himself with the artistic possibilities  of painting and sculpture. At the same time he gained a re  putation as an excellent arranger of booths at professional  fair exhibitions. In March 1966 he accepted an offer by the City Theater in  Dortmund, Germany, to work there as a painter and a  sculptor. In 1974 he moved to Switzerland, where he held the posi  tion of Head of the Sculpting Workshop in Zurich Opera  House for the following twenty years. Despite many professional obligations at the theater, Ilija  Vitolić managed to consistently devote himself to his  artistic work, continually searching for new forms of ex  pression and techniques to work on. In 1993 he took an early retirement and in the summer of  1994, he visited the Serbian monastery Hilandar on Mount  Athos in Greece. Upon returning to his home in Zurich, he fulfilled his long  cherished desire to build his own prayer site. He decided  to  transform a woodshed in the backyard into a distinctive  wooden chapel. The paintings of the Christian Holy Days Transfiguration of  the Lord, Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, Ascension  of the Lord and Descent of the Holy Spirit upon the  Apostles, intended to decorate the ceiling of his chapel  represent his last masterpieces.  Ilija Vitolić, father of four children, died on January 28th  1996, in Zurich. He found his eternal peace in the family  tomb at the New Cemetery in Belgrade.

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BIOGRAPHY