National Gallery of Slovenia

The National Gallery of Slovenia was founded in 1918 as the National Gallery Society with the aim of establishing a museum of Slovene fine art. In a relatively short time it succeeded in bringing together works from both public and private collections, including works by Slovene artists purchased by the City of Ljubljana and works belonging to the Society for Christian Art; it also began to systematically purchase other works of art.

The National Gallery was originally housed in the Kresija building, where a permanent exhibition was opened to the public in 1920. An important acquisition was 90 paintings from the Strahl Collection. In the early 1930s the gallery was also allocated casts of classical sculptures and works belonging to the National Museum of Slovenia. Then in 1933, after extensive renovation, the National Gallery opened its Narodni dom building, where it remains to this day. After the foundation of the Museum of Modern Art Ljubljana in 1947, many of the National Gallery's 20th-century art works were transferred to the new museum.

From its inception the National Gallery has systematically and continuously collected Slovene art in order to provide a comprehensive survey of artistic development in Slovenia. It also prepares occasional thematic and monograph exhibitions in order to present certain themes from Slovene art to the public, and collects some works by artists from other European nations, presenting them in different arrangements. However, the gallery had to wait for larger premises – achieved by the construction of a new wing in the early 1990s – before it could present a permanent collection of European Old Masters. This collection is now displayed in the upper rooms of the new wing while on the ground floor there is an exhibition area for temporary exhibitions, educational activities and a Library.

The Slovene art collection represents the core of the activity of the National Gallery of Slovenia. The medieval collection consists mainly of Gothic sculpture from the late Romanesque to the early Renaissance periods, plus some original fragments of Gothic frescoes. The survey continues with 16th and 17th century art, in which Baroque paintings are particularly well represented. Representative works by masters such as Anton Cebej, Valentin Metzinger, Franc Jelovšek and Fortunat Bergant are presented in the main hall. The survey of the Baroque period is complemented by some selected sculptures, most of them made by artists from Štajerska. The Classicism section is best represented by the monumental paintings of France Kavčič. The Biedermeier and Romantic period section includes portraits by Jožef Tominc and Michael Stroj and landscapes by Marko Pernhart and Anton Karinger. The survey of Realism focuses on the work of the Šubic brothers, Janez and Jurij, on important educator Anton Ažbe, and on Jožef Petkovšek. The presentation of the period is enhanced by popular paintings created by Ivana Kobilca. It is followed by the generation which introduced modernist creative trends to Slovene painting. Four painters (Rihard Jakopič, Ivan Grohar, Matija Jama and Matej Sternen), traditionally conceived as the Slovene Impressionists, combined different contemporary art trends, from impressionism to divisionism, to create the foundations for the development of modern art in Slovenia. The survey concludes with a generation of sculptors who are an important counterpart to the painters of the modernist period. Works by Alojzij Gangl and France Berneker are especially prominent.

Opened in 1997, the permanent collection of over 150 European paintings dating from the late 14th to the 20th century is the fruit of research work carried out by Dr Ksenija Rozman in co-operation with renowned Italian expert Professor Federico Zeri. The collection is divided into individual schools: Italian (the largest group), Spanish, French, Flemish and Dutch, German and Central European schools, and painters of the 19th and 20th centuries. Among the late Gothic works, the triptych (1511) of the Knillenberg family by Marx Reichlich is of particular note, as are the paintings of Luca Giordano among the Italian Baroque works, and the works of French portraitist Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun among the portrait collection. Prominent among the German painters are Paul Troger and Martin Johann Schmidt (Kremser-Schmidt), while the modern paintings include a remarkable still-life by Aleksej von Jawlenski and a landscape by Giorgio Morandi.

The National Gallery of Slovenia also has its own library.

National Gallery of Slovenia

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