Slovak Modern Art

About 160 paintings and sculptures give visitors a greater insight into Slovak art scene of the period.

This categorisation of works into their relevant contexts in the development of art allows the exhibition to underline links and relations, while the works retain their own features and stand out as unique pieces of art.

The art at the turn of the twentieth century was still dominated by genres such as portrait, landscape painting and still life, however, due to artists’ new vision of the world and their new understanding of art and its mission they underwent significant changes.

Painter-philosopher László Mednyánszky, is one of the most enigmatic figures in the history of European art. Despite an aristocratic background, he spent most of his life moving around Europe working as an artist.

On the one hand, Ladislav Mednyánszky was fascinated by the grandness and power of natural forces, on the other hand he felt deep compassion for suffering, which led him to create exceptionally rich, expressive figures, what was more or less unique in Slovak fine art.

It was in the environs of the town of Banská Bystrica that Dominik Skutezky discovered his life-long theme: work in copper smelters, which inspired him to capture brand new subjects with an epic and expressive power not found before, thus introducing a new subject in genre art in the wider region around us.

The whole of Paštek's work takes place in intentions of intimate and intimate painting with the aim of grasping by means of painterly means, but basically poetization, something of reality.

The pate enters the art scene in the late fifties and early sixties with its expressive painting characterized by coarsely applied colors and deliberately deformed or stylized figures set in hints of designated space.

Thanks to these artists and their work, the phenomenon of Slovak modern fine art was able to develop in later periods.