The collection presents the art of Kamnik and Kamnik-related artists, where among others Ivan Vavpotič, Dušan Lipovec, Polde Mihelič, Alojz Berlec, Aladin Lanc, Leon Homar, Stane Cuderman, Matija and Maks Koželj, Ferdo Mayer and Karel Zelenko are presented. The Collection is being supplemented with repurchases and received gifts.
Curator: Saša Bučan, historian of art, curator
sasa.bucan@guest.arnes.si
Painter, illustrator, scene painter, writer and also the president of the artistic society “Lada”. He studied in Prague, Paris and Vienna. As professor he taught at the secondary school in Idrija. After the retirement as a professor he lived as a liberal artist in Ljubljana.
He was a remarkable artist; his opus comprises also flower still-life and genre. His precise drawing and hard composition rank him among main Slovene Realists. Vavpotič is also the author of the first Slovene postal marks (Verigar), used in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes after the dissolved Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. In Kamnik, there is also Vavpotič’s birth house, marked with dedication.
Painter, sculptor, photographer, poet and journalist. After the School for animal husbandry and veterinary technicians in Ljubljana he enrolled in the Veterinary Faculty. He did not finish his studies, as after the first year he enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana, where he graduated in 1977 as a painter, under the mentorship of professor A. Jemec.
In Slovene art he is recognized as an author of modern painted landscape. He had found his motifs in Kamnik and its surroundings and also in Gorenjska (Upper Carniola), Primorska and Istria regions. He held many exhibitions at home and abroad and was granted many awards for his work.
He had finished the Secondary School for Design and Photography in Ljubljana (1969) and painting studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana, in 1974 he graduated under the mentorship of professors Maksim Sedej and Kiar Meško.
Already during his studies he was known as an explicit painter and he polished his painting knowledge to perfection. He received a student’s Prešeren award for drawings and small act in 1972.
Berlec’s painting is anchored in hard and accurate drawing, while main characteristic of his work is experimenting with colours and composition laws within Realism, in which he occasionally implements fantastic and surrealistic elements.
»… he is like a child, knowing nothing and being amazed at everything with big, wide opened eyes. His paintings are the same – simple, clumsy and childish. There is no philosophy in them, no artificial self-sufficiency. They speak straight, from heart to heart…« (Ivan Stopar, 1958)
After he had finished the School for Design and Photography in 1954, he continued with studies of art pedagogy at the Academy of Education (1965). Mihelič’s painting is continuation of tradition of searching for ideals of peasant life, as has already been met in work of the Vesnani group (a group of Slovenian artists, who were occupied with the programme for preservation of arts in the first half of the 20th century), the Kralj brothers… The artist found his motifs, caricatured figures and typical place settlements in people’s habits, customs, believes, thus in the peasants’ folklore.
Poet, story writer, academic sculptor and painter. After he had finished public and civil school in Šoštanj in 1934, he continued studies at the sculptor-carving department of the State Technical High School in Ljubljana and in the studying period 1937/38 he enrolled in the sculptural department of the Academy of Arts in Belgrade (he graduated in 1947). He worked as an art pedagogue in several Slovene towns, and from 1956 at the Grammar school in Kamnik.
Despite the sculptural education (he had two sculptural exhibitions – in Šoštanj, 1946 and in Celje, 1947) he mainly dedicated himself to painting, where he studied lyric motifs from nature in the aquarelle technique.
He studied at the Trade School in Ljubljana, being taught by professor France Kralj. He attended the Academies in Zagreb and in Belgrade, whereas he graduated at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana, under the mentorship of professor Zdenko Kalin. Homar’s main field of activity was small plastic, above all acts and women’s figure (mainly in burnt and patinated clay) and relief sculpturing. In his work one could feel the escape from the school of sculpturing Realism, while in his opus, several bolder and sometimes partly stylized solutions could be found.
He studied painting in Zagreb and in Prague (where he graduated in 1925), where he was Miha Maleš’s younger schoolmate, with whom he had his first exhibition in Ljubljana in 1927. Cuderman had a lot of technical knowledge, he was explicit in painting of light-dark contrasts, and he was a master of composition and decorative effects. His early works, mainly graphics (he was occupied with graphics only during his studies in Prague), show expressionistic characteristics (influence of German directions). In painting, which was his main field of activity, he was oriented predominantly towards Realism with emotional accents, whereas in his mature age he enriched his motifs with symbolic, allegoric details. He was extremely virtuosic portraitist, and could be regarded as one of the greatest names of Slovenian portrait painting art. In 1938 he decorated with frescoes the church of the Franciscan Monastery in Kamnik.
(More in the catalogue, published by the Interminicipal Museum of Kamnik) -link
He attended school in Vodice, where he was taught by the chaplain Mihael Peternel, who encouraged him for drawing and later, in Ljubljana, introduced him to some painters. In years 1860 – 1862 he attended drawing school at the Ljubljana secondary school under the tutorship of professor Joachim Oblak. In 1865 he moved to Kamnik, where he opened an art workshop. In the same year he painted the Way of the Cross in Dob. In 1878 he studied in Graz and Vienna, and in 1900 in Italy. He painted many altar images, ways of the cross and God’s graves. He decorated with frescoes many churches in Gorenjska (Upper Carniola) and Dolenjska (Lower Carniola) regions.
From the sixties he regularly painted for the needs of the church. He created many wall and altar paintings, ways of the cross and God’s graves. In 1869 he worked at Sv. Trojica above Vrhnika – a temple; in 1874 he worked in Mengeš – a great altar; in 1881 – four wall paintings in presbytery in Kamnik; in 1884 a temple in Bohinjska Bistrica; in 1886 a temple in Komenda; in 1889 an arch in Cerklje na Gorenjskem; in 1890 he worked in Ribnica – St. Ursula and the Third order of St. Francis; in 1893 he worked in a parish church in Gorje; in 1896/1897 he worked in a church in Šentrupert; in 1901 he worked in a provost’s chapel in Novo mesto; in 1902 he worked in Franciscan Church in Novo mesto; in 1903 he worked in a parish church’s nave and in 1904 in a temple in Trebnje; in 1905 he worked in a temple of a parish church in Homc; in 1906 he worked in a temple in Zgornji Tuhinj; in 1907 he worked in a parish church’s nave in Zapoge and in a parish church’s temple in Vodice; in 1908 he worked in a parish church’s nave in Kamnik; in 1912/1913 in a nave in Vodice, in a dome in Homec etc. Besides frescoes he painted many altar oil paintings and landscapes; especially in his mature age he got a lot of joy from landscape painting.
(More in the catalogue, published by the Interminicipal Museum of Kamnik) -link
He was Matija Koželj’s (1842-1917) son and was a successful church painter. He led a workshop and carried out orders in churches around Slovenia.
As a child he became enthusiastic about painting in his father’s workshop. In Kamnik he finished school and enrolled in the art school in Ljubljana. Under the mentoring of professor Josip Vesel he was preparing himself for an entering exam at the Art Academy in Vienna. He passed the exam in 1900 and enrolled in the school under the tutorship of professors Griepenkerl and Deluga. Due to illness he was forced to interrupt the studies in the sixth semester. He returned to Kamnik and helped his father carrying out the church orders, where he learnt about the painting al fresco. In the year 1905 he went to study to Prague and Munich. After he had finished his studies, he returned to Kamnik for ever.
As a painter, Koželj dedicated himself to landscape painting, especially to motifs from Kamnik and Kamnik-Savinja Alps. In latter years of his painting he found a new technique of aquarelle painting – painting with a rubber spade. In the year 1913 he had his first exhibition in the Jakopič’s Pavillion and later he took part at bigger common exhibitions in Ljubljana and Zagreb.
(More in the catalogue, published by the Interminicipal Museum of Kamnik)
Academic painter Ferdo Mayer is a painter of figurative compositions, objects, nudes, portraits and religious themes and landscapes. He was born in Maribor in 1927. In 1954 he moved to Kamnik, where he worked as an art pedagogue. After he had retired, he lived and worked in Lom under Storžič.
Although Karel Zelenko is a universal artist, he is better known for his graphics (mainly black-and-white etching) and pottery. He begun with his studies at the art school in Ljubljana and Graz, at the Academy of Arts in Vienna and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana, where he graduated in 1949 at the sculpture department, under the mentorship of professor Boris Kalin. In the year 1951 he finished a special school for graphics under the supervision of professor Božidar Jakac and continued his studies at the special school for painting under the tutorship of professor Gabrijel Stupica. After he finished studies, he employed in ceramic industry in Kamnik. In the years 1954 – 1959 he taught at the School for Design and Photography in Ljubljana. Since 1959 he has worked as a liberal artist in Ljubljana and in Grožnjan.
