Marred by the horrors of World War II, Vladimir Veličković (Belgrade, 1935 - Split, 2019) created fluid line drawings and dramatic paintings that depict the violence of humanity. His works often use a reduced palette of black, gray, white, and red, showing animals and people subjected to torture. The Birth (1968), a grotesque rendering of labor with a body hoisted up and penetrated by machinery, sold for $53,134 at auction in 2019. Veličković was born in Belgrade, then part of Yugoslavia, in 1935 and graduated from the University of Belgrade's Faculty of Architecture in 1960. He won first prize in painting at the Paris Biennale in 1965 and moved to the city the following year. In 1972 he represented Yugoslavia at the Venice Biennale. His work is in the collections of the Centre Pompidou, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium.