The Stories of Slovak modern art: Slovak fine art 1918 – 1948

The permanent exhibition offers a comprehensive picture of the Slovak contemporary art in inter-war period from the collections of the City Gallery of Bratislava. The selection of key works from the history of Slovak art presents an excellent collection of painting and sculpture of the period 1918 – 1948. The concept makes possible to capture parallel, though independent, richly diversified art events in Slovakia. The exhibition enables the visitors to get a picture of the development of art of the respective period based on the oeuvre of both the most famous representatives of painting, such as M. Benka, J. Alexy, M. A. Bazovský, Ľ. Fulla, M. Galanda, E. Šimerová, K. Sokol, C. Majerník, J. Mudroch, J. Želibský, V. Hložník, and the less famous but equally good and interesting artists, such as F. Reichentál, J. Flaché, J. Jakoby, E. Nemes, J. Bauernfreund, E. Nevan, L. Guderna, V. Chmel and many others. The exhibition reflects crucial artistic problems of the time, such as the issue of the traditional and the modern, the national and the international, the transformation of folklore, or de-folklorization of art, the phenomenon of the city and related loneliness of man, the conflict between the reality of war and helplessness of man in “stigmatised era” (Š. Žáry, 1944), the issue of fundamental human values etc.

Mgr. Zsófia Kiss-Szemán