 This year, when the 100th birth anniversary of the great painter and poet Milena Pavlović Barilli is being celebrated, the Italian newspaper Gazzetta di Parma on June 22 published in its Arte-Cultura column an article entitled Il centenario di Milena, which stated:
"This year we celebrate the centenary of the birth of Milena Pavlović Barilli, the only daughter of Bruno Barilli, the second son of Cecepria, the founder of the great family of artists from Parma. Musician, critic, writer, curious spirit, author of the unforgettable Country of Melodrama, Bruno married pianist Danitza Pavlović, who by her maternal line was a cousin of King Peter Karađorđević of Serbia. She was a recognised student in Monaco and later in Vienna. In short, a princess. Milena was born to Bruno and Danitza on November 5, 1909, in Požarevac, Serbia. She was destined to become a fine and affirmed painter who tragically died in the US at 36 years old …"
The headline included only the name Milena, because at the time of her death, her opus had already been acquiring a dimension of immortality, so it sufficed to write – Milena. This is also the signature under which she would usually add the year when she completed a painting or drawing. And when writing the letters of her name, and the year under it, Milena used to follow a special "aesthetics", leaving enough space between the numbers in the second row in order to match the length of the first row i.e. her signature.
The central celebration of Milena’s birth anniversary was organised at Belgrade’s SASA Gallery.
Under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture of Serbia, on July 17th the Gallery of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts opened a representative retrospective exhibition of Milena Pavlović Barilli, one of the most distinguished figures of the Serbian and European artistic scene in the in- terwar period, the only Serbian representative of post-surrealism, "an architect of dream and dreaming" who, in her rich artistic opus, was incessantly negotiating the thin line of the imaginary, says the author of the exhibition, monograph and display Jelica Milojković for New Review, also a museum consultant at the Gallery of Milena Pavlović Barilli in Požarevac. Ms. Jelica Milojković’s several decades of research is now presented in a unique project entitled, "On the Starry Vestige – Milena Pavlović Barilli – a Hundred Years From Her Birth".
 The only child of a beautiful and educated lady from Požarevac, Danica, and Italian composer, music critic, poet and travel books writer Bruno Barilli, Milena was born on October 23rd by the old calendar i.e. on November 5th, 1909 by the new calendar, in the family house of her maternal grandfather Stojan Pavlović, says Jelica Milojković. However, her life path soon led her away from the pleasant town of Požarevac. The romantic charm of its cobbled streets, old Secessionist facades and roofs were replaced by the vistas of ancient Rome, sunny Nice, Bergamo, Pesaro, and later Madrid, Granada, Seville, Cordoba, London, Paris, New York. In these cities Milena grew up, was educated, matured, and formed her artistic nature. The nostalgia and restlessness of her early years would follow her throughout her life, becoming at the same time one of the main attributes of her artistic work.
However, she first learned painting at the Belgrade School of Art (1922- 1926). Later she continued her studies in Munich, at Blochere Bosshardt, Knirr Schule and Akademie der bildendedn Künste (1926-1928).
 "The most significant part of Milena’s artistic opus was made outside Serbia, which Milena left in the early spring of 1930", says Milojković. For nearly a decade she lived and worked in West-European art metropolises like London, Paris and Rome. She associated with and exhibited with the most outstanding representatives of the European avant-garde. On the eve of World War Two, in August 1939, Milena left for New York. In America, Milena soon acquired a high status. She charmed with her unique figure, erudition, background, and fluent knowledge of several world languages.
Milena met many influential people from the world of art who introduced her to the circle of acclaimed intellectuals, gallerists, and editors of fashion magazines. Her exhibitions in New York and Washington attracted the attention of the art community, art theoreticians and the public in general. Milena’s works of art were seen by art reviewers as a huge field of memories and a sophisticated solitude was pervaded by the endless nostalgia and architecture of dreaming. These articles distinctly give emphasis to Milena’s excellent education, her cosmopolitan spirit, and the brilliant imagination that her canvases emitted that were at the same time imbued with poetry, enigma and fantasy. Besides this pure art, Milena also did commercial design in the USA, mostly as an illustrator for the most distinguished American fashion journals and magazines that featured interior and exterior design (Vogue, Town & Country, Charm, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar). She married Robert Thomas Astor Gosselin on December 24th, 1943.
She collaborated with composer Gian Carlo Menotti and designed costumes for his ballet Sebastian (1944).
She died in New York, on March 6th, 1945.
Although most of Milena’s opus was created outside Serbia, the author of the exhibition points out that "This unique artistic opus has for the most part been located in Požarevac, Milena’s birthplace and the town of her youth, where it has been displayed since 1962, in the house of her birth. For this precious gift we can thank Milena’s parents, firstly her mother Danica who bequeathed to Serbia this treasure that, in its importance, surpasses state borders".
Milena’s father Bruno Barilli also played an important part in this project. After Milena’s death he encouraged Danica to start collecting their daughter’s works.
Miodrag B. Protić, who was the first to write about Milena (in 1954 he initiated an exhibition of her works that was held in 1955), cites the letter that Bruno Barilli sent to his former wife Danica, with whom he remained in friendly relations despite their divorce in 1923. In this letter from Italy, he wrote about the future museum; the letter not only expresses grief over his daughter’s death and his concern that her paintings and things might be scattered around the world, but it also reveals the deep poetic nature of this outstanding man whose artistic traits Milena partly inherited. "The two of us are alone in the world, alive but fatally wounded and we wait with the weak remains of our breaths for – we both know what – separated beyond hope, 2,000 kilometers away from each other, lonely … and buried under memories. My Danica, take whatever the authorities are ready to offer and make that small museum of Milena’s paintings. Bring all of Milena’s things from Paris – you wouldn’t want them to get lost there?"
In another letter to Danica, Barilli remembers the poetic atmosphere of pre-war Požarevac and his impressions of it: "Do you remember that Easter in your house, with Milena, 40 years ago? I was there, ah, how I remember that – your grandma was there, your father – how beautiful that evening was! While I’m writing this, I remember them most clearly – vigorous, so straight, strong, good, brave and happy… Today, there are no such people nor will there ever be … What a time! From you and with you, and especially with you, I learned everything then".
We shouldn’t forget that Bruno Barilli, in the book "Serbian Wars" (Prometej, 1969), describes with many sympathies towards the Serbian people the events during the wars led in 1912 and 1914-1915. These are actually his war reports published by the Italian press and edited by Giorgio Pellegrini.
Milena’s mother Danica, as featured in Olivera Janković’s book "Milena", is the "personalisation of a woman for whose identity the relation ship with her child is more important then the one with a man and who is therefore, like great mothers from mythology, Demetra or Leto, ready to sacrifice herself for the benefit and future of own children, but later she would also influence their decisions and relationships with other people". An artist, from a wealthy family, Danica studied piano and solo singing abroad. During her studies at the Conservatory in Munich, she met Bruno Barilli in the boarding house. They fell in love, and not long afterwards, they got married. However, the marriage didn’t last long. They divorced when Milena was 14 years old, but nonetheless they remained friends. Much later, in 1965, fate had it that Danica, already 83 years old, visited Barilli’s family in Parma (Bruno died in 1952). Of frail health, she spent the greater part of the time in the hospital in which she died. Požarevac’ newspaper The Word of People on November 26, 1965 published an article about Danica Pavlović’s funeral in Rome. Besides family, the funeral was attended by "the poet Giuseppe Ungaretti, tenor Tito Bianchi, sculptor Asen Pejkov, chargé d’affaires of the Yugoslav Embassy in Rome and the Yugoslav consul general, and the news published by the national wire news agency ANSA appeared in seven Italian newspapers. Danica rests in Rome at Cimitero acattolico degli stranieri (Non-Catholic Cemetery), next to Milena (whose urn was brought from America in 1947 and buried in 1949) and by Bruno Barilli. Thus they were united again to remain together for ever in death.
The exhibition at the Gallery of SASA displayed 136 of Milena’s works (of which 128 were from the Gallery of Milena Pavlović Barilli, seven from the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade and one from Belgrade’s National Museum). Also on display were documents, personal belongings, Milena’s palette and the famous Venetian chair. The exhibition was accompanied by a representative catalogue/monograph with numerous photographs, documents, reproductions and the collection of Milena’s poetry.
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Milena’s poem without a title
II
I would to love you
More than I’m able
Turned away from the world –
with no time, no space –
to be carved in your reflection.
In an anxiety of existence,
I would,
to immerse my consciousness
into your serenity
setting every tear free
which I must still cry
at the terrible margin
of an imaginary relation.
Note: Milena didn’t give titles to her poems, but marked them by Roman numerals.
Only two of her poems have titles: Image and Phantom.
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