The foundations for the Split branch of the Croatian Association for Visual Arts were laid with the artistic efforts of an underground group that opposed fascist exhibitions during the Second World War. After the war, the Association became the main cultural force in Split, organizing traditional exhibitions like the annual May Day exhibitions. On November 22, 1945, the cultural and scientific workers of the Ivan Lozica Society established a special association of Dalmatian visual artists, known today as HULU Split. In February 1946, the association organized its first group exhibition. It opened on May 1, 1946, in Salon Galić, and continued yearly on the same date and place, under the name of May Day (
Prvomajske izložbe). In 1946, the same members of the Ivan Lozica Society founded an evening school dedicated to educating attendees on the practical pieces of knowledge of the artistic process, which matured in the School of Applied Art of Split. In 1951, HULU was granted a permanent exhibition space in the House of Culture, and later in
Krešimir Street. In the decades that came, it was entrusted to manage significant public spaces including the Protiron on the south of the
peristyle in
Diocletian's Palace, the
crypt under the
Cathedral of Saint Domnius,
Diocletian's cellars and the Kula Gallery with art-based events. Other prominent spaces that the association handled count
the Fine Arts Gallery,
the Archaeological Museum and the Museum of the People's Revolution. Ivan Galić confided his exhibitional space to HULU in his will, and it has managed Salon Galić since 1961. It has hosted over a thousand exhibitions there since, and ensured Salon Galić as an enduring and relevant artistic destination in Croatia. In 1969, the Association launched today one of the most important art happenings in Croatia,
the Split Salon. As artistic pluralism started becoming a hallmark of the contemporary art scene, colourful and eclectic principles mirrored numerous mid-sixties efforts anchored by HULU Split, like the Youth Salon (1973), the Biennale of Contemporary Croatian Graphics (1974), and the Small Formats Biennale (1977). At the end of the seventies, HULU became an independent society called the Croatian Society of Fine Artists, and three years later, in December 1982 a social organization. A move estimating the budding need in Split to court tourism is the Diocletian Sales Gallery, promoting art for tourists, for which the Association was instrumental in opening during the eighties. The exhibition corpus between 1945 and 1992 was the subject of a notable study conducted by the then-president of the exhibitional branch of the association Duško Kečkemet in 2000 titled
Likovne izložbe u Splitu 1945-1992. In 2022, HULU Split organised a charitable manifestation, in conjunction with the cultural association of Ukrainians in Croatia
Cvit, with its member's paintings up for auction that raised 125000
Croatian kuna (around 16000
euros)
for Ukraine. ==Awards and accolades==