Dabac Toso. Fotograf / Photographer

Graficki Zavod Hrvatske, 1969. — 166 p.For several older generations, and for a younger generation or two as well, Toso Dabac will remain a legend. He is best known by those who in his time followed his life and work occasionally or continuously. There are quite a few documents, and recorded and remembered information, about the events around him and about his doings, while the body of his work has been preserved in his negatives — many tens of thousands of them. The documents have not been counted yet, or classified, or even brought together. Recorded information have largely been collected, but not all have been read as well. The reminiscences of a few contemporaries, acquaintances, friends and relatives still await appreciation. There are many negatives that have never been copied or blown up. The main sources of knowledge about Toso are still to be found in his llica studio.Only thorough use of all evidence about Dabac will enable us to put together a complete picture of the history of the photographic medium in this count-ry over the past half a century, because his work is an essential part of this history and at the same time reflects his time in all its entirety. Similarly, if we fail to preserve Toso’s work in his photographic bequest, we shall lose a huge number of data on the visual reality of this country between 1930 and 1970. Dabac journeyed through all its regions countless times, recording with his camera the faces of known and unknown people; landscapes — flat and hilly, coastal and lowlands, idyllic and dramatic; a great number of monuments of culture originating at various points in history, from pre-history to the present day; he tirelessly recorded tradition which was dying and the new developments which may never become tradition; his cameras traced the face of this country equally well where the scales of details are magnificent and where misery reduces everything to smallness and insignificance; he portrayed alike the growing and the developing, and the deteriorating and the disappearing.