THIS! is the Story of Illustration
4. 5. – 15. 10. 2023
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Book illustrations are often the first work of art we encounter as children. It is through the illustrations that we discover the world of individual stories. We learn to be eager to discover new things, look for connections, and get to know the logic of things and events. The stories of these paper heroes and heroines even make us think about the values: why we should be good, brave and honest. While the details of these stories often slip our minds, the images stay there forever. However... Have you ever wondered where the originals of all those stunning works are today?
Through joining the archives of THIS! is the Gallery and the Bratislava City Gallery, exhibition visitors can enjoy a variety of illustrations that we remember from the books we read as children and from those we now read with our children. Often, we do not know which illustrators created them, and as such we tend to overlook the excellence of the Slovak tradition of illustration, and that an illustration is a work of art the equivalent of a painting. This combination of city and private collections gives us the opportunity to present the development of Slovak illustration in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Before the works of art are presented to the broad public at the gallery they must be collected, classified, and categorised into comprehensible and logical systems.
Since as the art historian Eva Trojanová put it: “Art history is topography.” You need to seek and combine not only well-known things, but also unique objects and works created silently in seclusion; you need to get out of the big cities and revive the interest in forgotten artists.
Since as the art historian Eva Trojanová put it: “Art history is topography.” You need to seek and combine not only well-known things, but also unique objects and works created silently in seclusion; you need to get out of the big cities and revive the interest in forgotten artists.
And so we have teamed up. Bratislava City Gallery and THIS! is the Gallery. Opening our collections, we want to show you how the Slovak illustration developed, how it changed over time, and who brought it to the highest level.