Herman Gvardjančič
Encyclopedia
Herman Gvardjančič, Slovene painter
, born 21 October 1943, Gorenja vas
, Škofja Loka
.
in Slovenia
and was educated at the local primary school. After this he attented the Ljubljana School of Design and later continued painting at the Art Academy in Ljubljana. He finished his studies under Professor Maksim Sedej in 1968 and then specialised under Professor Zoran Didek in 1970. His studies brought him into contact with other famous Slovene painters including France Mihelič, Marij Pregelj and Gabrijel Stupica. After his graduation he continued his studies in Poland
and Germany
. From 1971 he worked as a teacher in a primary school until in 1987 he began work as a Professor at the Pedagogical Academy in Ljubljana
. Since 1997 H. G. has worked as a professor of painting and drawing at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana
. He continues to live in Škofja Loka, the town of his birth.
His creations are always based on the subject rather than on the abstract
. In his opus we recognise that he is a painter of culture and ethics of late modernism
and, despite the widespread use of new media, he insists on the expressive power of traditional painting and drawing. He trusts the visual power of his work through which he expresses the existential validity of the subjective experiences of birth, life and death.
He manages to capture this with a remarkable sense of balance, composition and integrity to which he also adds his subtle touch. The concluding thought is therefore that from H.G’s works there radiates a primal instinct of the mental state of the artist.
His works are present in several collections in Slovenia and abroad (Karlovac
, Sombor
, Rijeka
, Zagreb
, Belgrade
, Graz
, Kunsan, Lisbon
, Hiroshima
, Tokyo
, Vienna
). For his work he received the Prešeren Foundation Award
in 1981 , the Grohar Award in 1988 and the Jakopič Award
in 1990.
In an interview (Art Words No. 81 - 82) H.G.said:
movement in Europe and America) H.G. made a series of landscape paintings in the pop art style. This resulted in his paintings entitled: Road, Figure and Landscape. Between 1972 - 1975 Gvardjančič enters a period of photorealism
, where he was a broker in their perception of the nature of the use of photography
. During this period, significant paintings are: Cumulus, Southern Sky and Superpanorama.
Between 1975 and 1977 he entered a period of painting entitled »Typical Landscape«. Two major paintings from this period are Dandelion and Shadows. In 1976 he exhibited at the Venice Biennale
and in 1977 at the International Fine Arts in Belgrade. In 1978 he exhibited at the 12th Mediterranean Biennale in Alexandria
. From 1977 to 1979 he painted the so-called »minimalist landscape«. In 1980 he produced a series of paintings entitled Grasses.
Between 1982 and 1985 resulting from cycles of drawings, paintings and watercolors, he produced In Memoriam, and Reminiscence. In 1983 cycles of drawings and paintings on the theme of House of Suicide Silva, Suicide Silva fence and Intimacy. In 1984 he completed a series of images with a key painting entitled Gray sun.
In 1991 he exhibited at the exhibition Kunst Europa in Siegen
. In the same year he drew a picture entitled Solea and Saita (the theme music Miles Davis
). In the period 1997 - 2005 he worked under the influence of the music of Nico
. In 2008, he had retrospective exhibitions at the International Graphic Centre in Ljubljana, City Art Museum in Ljubljana and in the Gallery of Contemporary Art in Celje
. On this occasion, his monograph was also published. Between 2008 - 2010 he painted a series entitled Dimming and Sigur Ros
(Sigur Ros is a band from Reykjavík
).
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, born 21 October 1943, Gorenja vas
Gorenja vas - Retece
Gorenja vas – Reteče is a village on the left bank of the River Sora in the Škofja Loka municipality in the Upper Carniola region of Slovenia.- External links :*...
, Škofja Loka
Škofja Loka
-Art colony:Before the civil war in the former Yugoslavia the Serbian town of Smederevska Palanka and the town of Škofja Loka held art colonies Groharijeva kolonija run by an art teacher from elementary school Olga Milošević in Smederevska Palanka. Now, after the split of SFR Yugoslavia, the two...
.
Life
H. G. was born in Škofja LokaŠkofja Loka
-Art colony:Before the civil war in the former Yugoslavia the Serbian town of Smederevska Palanka and the town of Škofja Loka held art colonies Groharijeva kolonija run by an art teacher from elementary school Olga Milošević in Smederevska Palanka. Now, after the split of SFR Yugoslavia, the two...
in Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
and was educated at the local primary school. After this he attented the Ljubljana School of Design and later continued painting at the Art Academy in Ljubljana. He finished his studies under Professor Maksim Sedej in 1968 and then specialised under Professor Zoran Didek in 1970. His studies brought him into contact with other famous Slovene painters including France Mihelič, Marij Pregelj and Gabrijel Stupica. After his graduation he continued his studies in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
and Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. From 1971 he worked as a teacher in a primary school until in 1987 he began work as a Professor at the Pedagogical Academy in Ljubljana
Ljubljana
Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia and its largest city. It is the centre of the City Municipality of Ljubljana. It is located in the centre of the country in the Ljubljana Basin, and is a mid-sized city of some 270,000 inhabitants...
. Since 1997 H. G. has worked as a professor of painting and drawing at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana
Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Ljubljana
The Academy of Fine Arts and Design , is a prestigious art academy and institution based in Ljubljana, Slovenia . It is part of the University of Ljubljana....
. He continues to live in Škofja Loka, the town of his birth.
Art Work
Throughout his life, H. G. has proved to be an important contributor to the field of art in all its manifestations. He has helped to decipher the problematic, multi-layered world of painting as it has evolved during his own creative life.His creations are always based on the subject rather than on the abstract
Abstract art
Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
. In his opus we recognise that he is a painter of culture and ethics of late modernism
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
and, despite the widespread use of new media, he insists on the expressive power of traditional painting and drawing. He trusts the visual power of his work through which he expresses the existential validity of the subjective experiences of birth, life and death.
He manages to capture this with a remarkable sense of balance, composition and integrity to which he also adds his subtle touch. The concluding thought is therefore that from H.G’s works there radiates a primal instinct of the mental state of the artist.
His works are present in several collections in Slovenia and abroad (Karlovac
Karlovac
Karlovac is a city and municipality in central Croatia. The city proper has a population of 49,082, while the municipality has a population of 59,395 inhabitants .Karlovac is the administrative centre of Karlovac County...
, Sombor
Sombor
Sombor is a city and municipality located in northwest part of Serbian autonomous province of Vojvodina. The city has a total population of 48,749 , while the Sombor municipality has 87,815 inhabitants...
, Rijeka
Rijeka
Rijeka is the principal seaport and the third largest city in Croatia . It is located on Kvarner Bay, an inlet of the Adriatic Sea and has a population of 128,735 inhabitants...
, Zagreb
Zagreb
Zagreb is the capital and the largest city of the Republic of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb lies at an elevation of approximately above sea level. According to the last official census, Zagreb's city...
, Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
, Graz
Graz
The more recent population figures do not give the whole picture as only people with principal residence status are counted and people with secondary residence status are not. Most of the people with secondary residence status in Graz are students...
, Kunsan, Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
, Hiroshima
Hiroshima
is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It became best known as the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 A.M...
, Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
, Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
). For his work he received the Prešeren Foundation Award
Prešeren Award
Prešeren Award is the highest decoration in the field of artistic and in the past also scientific creation in Slovenia awarded each year to one or two eminent Slovene artists...
in 1981 , the Grohar Award in 1988 and the Jakopič Award
Rihard Jakopic
Rihard Jakopič was a Slovenian painter. He was the leading Slovenian Impressionist painter and theoretician. Together with Matej Sternen, Matija Jama and Ivan Grohar, he is considered the pioneer of Slovenian impressionist painting.- Life :Jakopič was born in Ljubljana, then part of the...
in 1990.
In an interview (Art Words No. 81 - 82) H.G.said:
Important periods, paintings and exhibitions
Between 1970 and 1972 (during the pop artPop art
Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...
movement in Europe and America) H.G. made a series of landscape paintings in the pop art style. This resulted in his paintings entitled: Road, Figure and Landscape. Between 1972 - 1975 Gvardjančič enters a period of photorealism
Photorealism
Photorealism is the genre of painting based on using the camera and photographs to gather information and then from this information creating a painting that appears photographic...
, where he was a broker in their perception of the nature of the use of photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
. During this period, significant paintings are: Cumulus, Southern Sky and Superpanorama.
Between 1975 and 1977 he entered a period of painting entitled »Typical Landscape«. Two major paintings from this period are Dandelion and Shadows. In 1976 he exhibited at the Venice Biennale
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...
and in 1977 at the International Fine Arts in Belgrade. In 1978 he exhibited at the 12th Mediterranean Biennale in Alexandria
Alexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...
. From 1977 to 1979 he painted the so-called »minimalist landscape«. In 1980 he produced a series of paintings entitled Grasses.
Between 1982 and 1985 resulting from cycles of drawings, paintings and watercolors, he produced In Memoriam, and Reminiscence. In 1983 cycles of drawings and paintings on the theme of House of Suicide Silva, Suicide Silva fence and Intimacy. In 1984 he completed a series of images with a key painting entitled Gray sun.
In 1991 he exhibited at the exhibition Kunst Europa in Siegen
Siegen
Siegen is a city in Germany, in the south Westphalian part of North Rhine-Westphalia.It is located in the district of Siegen-Wittgenstein in the Arnsberg region...
. In the same year he drew a picture entitled Solea and Saita (the theme music Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
). In the period 1997 - 2005 he worked under the influence of the music of Nico
Nico
Nico was a German singer, lyricist, composer, musician, fashion model, and actress, who initially rose to fame as a Warhol Superstar in the 1960s...
. In 2008, he had retrospective exhibitions at the International Graphic Centre in Ljubljana, City Art Museum in Ljubljana and in the Gallery of Contemporary Art in Celje
Celje
Celje is a typical Central European town and the third largest town in Slovenia. It is a regional center of Lower Styria and the administrative seat of the Urban Municipality of Celje . The town of Celje is located under Upper Celje Castle at the confluence of the Savinja, Ložnica, and Voglajna...
. On this occasion, his monograph was also published. Between 2008 - 2010 he painted a series entitled Dimming and Sigur Ros
Sigur Rós
Sigur Rós is an Icelandic post-rock band with classicaland minimalist elements. The band is known for its ethereal sound, and frontman Jónsi Birgisson's falsetto vocals and use of bowed guitar. In January 2010, the band announced that they will be on hiatus. Since then, it has since been announced...
(Sigur Ros is a band from Reykjavík
Reykjavík
Reykjavík is the capital and largest city in Iceland.Its latitude at 64°08' N makes it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói Bay...
).
Solo exhibitions(selection)
- 1981, Ljubljana, Mala Galerija
- 1985, Ljubljana, Equrna Gallery
- 1988, Ljubljana, Museum of Modern Art, Ljubljana, retrospective exhibition
- 1998, Ljubljana, Tivoli Castle, Ljubljana/MGLC
- 2008, Ljubljana, Ljubljana city gallery, Tivoli castle, Ljubljana/MGLC, CeljeCeljeCelje is a typical Central European town and the third largest town in Slovenia. It is a regional center of Lower Styria and the administrative seat of the Urban Municipality of Celje . The town of Celje is located under Upper Celje Castle at the confluence of the Savinja, Ložnica, and Voglajna...
Gallery of Contemporary Art
Group exhibitions (selection)
- 1975, EdinburgEdinburgEdinburg may refer to a place in South Africa:* Edinburg, North West* Edinburg, MpumalangaEdinburg may refer to a place in the United States:* Edinburg, Illinois* Edinburg, Iowa* Edinburg, Maine* Edinburg, Mississippi* Edinburg, Missouri...
, The Richard Demarco GalleryRichard DemarcoRichard Demarco, CBE is an Italian Scottish artist and promoter of the visual and performing arts.-Richard Demarco Gallery:...
, aSPECT - 1976, VeniceVeniceVenice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
, Venice BiennaleVenice BiennaleThe Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years... - 1991, SiegenSiegenSiegen is a city in Germany, in the south Westphalian part of North Rhine-Westphalia.It is located in the district of Siegen-Wittgenstein in the Arnsberg region...
, Stadtische Galerie Haus Seel, Kunst Evropa - 2002, BelgradeBelgradeBelgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
, Museum of Contemporary Art (Belgrade)Museum of Contemporary Art (Belgrade)Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade is the art institution which collects and displays work produced since in 1900 in Serbia and former Yugoslavia. The museum also organizes international exhibitions of modern and contemporary art. It was founded in 1958 as the Museum of Modern Art...
, Yugoslavias art space 1990–1991 - 2003, LjubljanaLjubljanaLjubljana is the capital of Slovenia and its largest city. It is the centre of the City Municipality of Ljubljana. It is located in the centre of the country in the Ljubljana Basin, and is a mid-sized city of some 270,000 inhabitants...
, Museum of Modern Art, Ljubljana, Do roba in naprej, Slovene art 1975–1985
External links
- Gvardjančič on
- Gvardjančič on sloART
- City Gallery Ljubljana
- Web gallery