If Prof. Eugen Meneghello planted the rocky island, and his son Toto Meneghello followed his father’s dream of a botanical garden and guest house far away from civilization, then Dagmar Meneghello took the dream to yet another dimension. She brought a new gift to Palmižana, the vision of modern art, adding space for exhibitions, and offering a retreat for aspiring artists: the Škorpion art gallery was born. 

Škorpion in the ’80s
The founders of The Škorpion art gallery (1980) on Palmižana, Dagmar Meneghello, Nikša Barišic and Marinko Petrić, set out to tell local and foreign visitors of Croatian high-quality achievements in the fine arts, and showcasing artists who have immortalised the island it in all its beauty. Škorpion art gallery was a pursuit of love, not for business.

Without any help from the powers in the Croatian art bureaucracy, Dagmar on her own, with love and goodwill from friends, artists and critics, through Škorpion art gallery has enriched and given another creative dimension to Palmižana's unique identity.

Today it is a highly recognized institution, a role model in the Croatian art world. The Škorpion art gallery has affirmed many artists from Lesiak, Kulmer, Kurtović, to Bane Milenković and Lipovac, and many more. The Škorpion art gallery in Palmižana became an important window for young Croatian artists to be known and for the world to have the possibility to view their work.

Dagmar - the passionate art collector and critic
together with all the friends of the Škorpion art gallery dedicated their love and affection to discover, select and present the new artistic talent of the Croatian art scene. 

Dagmar over the years has looked further for inspiration, maintaining the same guiding principles with which she started her venture more than 30 years ago, and also outside of Croatia she continues to search for new talent and inspiration, with a desire to connect and enrich her extensive collection.

Škorpion art gallery is an extension of Dagmar’s open arms, a perfect liaison between artists and art lovers.

The gallery at the end of the world lives and lasts in the arms of Palmižana.

Private Art Collection

The Art Collection of Dagmar Meneghello on Palmižana
A PLEASURE IN CONTEXT
By Tonko Maroević

"The Meneghello Collection affords a nice cross-section of contemporary Croatian creativity in the fine arts, particularly of anything with a maritime inspiration and a figurative or neo-figurative base. It goes from the canonised classics like Kulmer, Petlevski, Šebalj, Radovani, Lovrenčić, Reiser, Željko Hegedušić and Murtić, via some of the most buoyant and most highly regarded contemporaries such as Šutej, Lipovac, Lesiak, Kuduz, Radoičić, Trebotić, Kavurić-Kurtović (and she is both greatly represented, quantity-wise, and remarkable in quality, as well as special typologically, for the hedonism of existence in her work is oxymoronically seasoned with pain and vulnerability) to some who were once the newest but are today well established painters, among  whom there is a marked presence of the Hvar painters Kovačić, Bogdanić, Zea Fio, Drinković, as well as, appropriately selected, among many others, Švaljek and Kuliš, Vrkljan, Lapuh and Rončević, Trtovac and Bane Milenković… The openness of the collection, its redolence of the south and marine currents, of the layered deposits of civilisation and the flows of creativity, holds also promise of new encounters, and serious reasons for coming to Palmižana." Read more.