Jovan Kratohvil was born in 1924 in Belgrade. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade in 1949, where he also specialised in sculpture. Between 1971 and 1973, he assumed the position of the chancellor of the University of Arts in Belgrade. In his sculpting career he created numerous sculptures and monuments. His sculpting work was supplemented with graphics and tapestry. His exhibition activities, which started during his studies in 1946, included solo and group exhibitions, the highlight of which was the participation at the Venice Biennale (1966) and frequent selections at the International Bienniales of Small Sculptures in Murska Sobota. He received a series of awards and acknowledgements for his work. He lived and worked in Belgrade, where he died in 1998.

The Art Council of Forma viva 1962, the president of which was Alfred Schmeller, an Austrian art critic from Vienna, decided that in that year the most prominent persons at the Portorose symposium were Italian Nino Cassani and Yugoslav Jovan Kratohvil. From the very beginning, the roughly worked horizontal sculpture of the Serbian sculptor is situated in that part of the park that resembles a natural amphitheatre. The author’s interpretation of the object inventory – the statue resembles a key – speaks about the solidity of volume and the simplicity and concentration of expression. The power of Kratohvil’s sculpture is in the effort to preserve associativity, in the symbiosis of organic and mechanical factors, and an almost iconic respect for the material used.