The Foundation's founders, the Nevjestić family, and manager, Vesna Jurić Bulatović, are encouraging the opening of a multimedia museum and gallery, the Virgil House, with an exhibition of his works, and a reconstruction of his Paris studio. They also seek to research, evaluate and publish the artist's work and present it to the general public through exhibitions, lectures and workshops in cooperation with the Croatian Academy of Fine Arts and other cultural institutions in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, his hometown of Tomislavgrad, and France.
The initiative was supported by Foreign Minister Gordan Grlić Radman, who said that he feels special closeness to Nevjestić's works because he himself originally comes from the area that provided a source of permanent inspiration to the artist.
Vlatko Marić, president of AMCA (Almae Matris Croaticae Alumni) Paris and a friend of the artist, said that Nevjestić is always referred to as a graphic artist, a painter and a poet, while forgetting that he was also a teacher to many artists who attended his academy.
Nevjestić was born in Kolo, Tomislavgrad, Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1935 and died in Paris in 2009. After graduating from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1963, he left for Paris, which provided him with a studio at 28 Boulevard Saint Jacques.
He became an unavoidable figure in French artistic circles in the 1970s and the early 1980s. He became a member of prestigious French associations of graphic artists and founded L'academie Virgile, where he taught graphic arts. He also taught at the French Institute for the Restoration of Works of Art.
During his 40-year career, he received many awards and saw his works displayed in the most prestigious European and world cultural centres and institutions, museums and galleries.