Travellers passing through Split Airport this month are getting more than a boarding pass. A new exhibition of works by 24 Croatian painters and sculptors has gone on display in the terminal, timed to the feast of Saint Jerome and Split-Dalmatia County Day.
The pieces were all produced at the St. Jerome Art Colony, a two-day event held on Marjan, the forested hill that looms over Split, on 22 and 23 September 2023. That gathering marked the 30th anniversary of Split-Dalmatia County and was organised by the county, the University of Split and the Parish of the Holy Cross in the Veli Varos neighbourhood.
The artist list reads like a roll call of well-known Croatian names: Goran Balic, Kuzma Kovacic, Djani Martinsic, Zvonimir Mihanovic, Alma Cace, Tea Moric Situm and Frane Situm among them, spanning painters and sculptors from Dalmatia and further afield.
This is the third outing for the collection. It previously hung at the University Gallery and at the National and University Library in Zagreb, where county prefect Blazenko Boban, who opened the airport showing, hopes its story will now travel further. His reasoning is simple: an airport exhibition puts contemporary Croatian art in front of an international audience that no gallery could match, sending the story of Saint Jerome, Marjan and Croatian fine art home with passengers from across Europe and beyond.
The timing carries extra weight. Split Airport, officially named after Saint Jerome, is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, and director Josip Coric noted this is the first cultural event of its kind staged on the premises. For a facility best known for summer crowds heading to the Adriatic islands, it marks a deliberate step towards making the terminal itself part of the Dalmatian experience.
For visitors, it is a free and genuinely worthwhile pit stop. If you are flying into Split and heading straight for the ferry to Hvar or the old town, an hour in the terminal could be your first taste of the region's strong living art scene, not just its Roman ruins and beaches. It is also a nudge to slow down: the same Marjan hill that inspired these works is a short ride from the airport's city end, with walking trails, viewpoints and chapels of its own.
