The painter Ľudovít Fulla (born February 27, 1902 in Ružomberok, died April 21, 1980 in Bratislava) completed his studies first at the private school of Gustáv Mallé in Bratislava (1921 - 1922) and later in metropolitan Prague at the School of Arts and Industry in (1922 - 1927, Arnošt Hofbauer, František Kysela).
Avant-garde struggles in the field of visual arts in Slovakia cantered around the Bratislava School of Arts and Crafts (SoAaC) with ideas close to the German Bauhaus, whose effort was to connect all types of art in practice. Ľudovít Fulla worked at the school in the years 1929-1939, almost during its entire existence. This period also includes the most artistically radical part of his work, the collaboration with Mikuláš Galand, with whom he jointly published the Private Letters of Full and Galand (4 issues were published in 1930-1932). It was the first and actually the only manifesto of modern painting in Slovakia, in which they tried to theoretically formulate their purely modernist artistic concept.
In 1937, Ľudovít Full was awarded the Grand Prix prize at the World Exhibition in Paris for the painting Song and Work. Full's international achievements were not limited to painting. For his avant-garde scenic designs for the Slovak National Theatre, he won a bronze medal at the Triennale in Milan in 1936 and a silver medal in Paris in 1937.
However, social and private circumstances did not develop happily for Fulla. In 1938, Mikuláš Galanda died prematurely, and subsequently, during the Slovak state, the cosmopolitan SoAaC was abolished in 1939. After a short teaching career, Full asked for retirement and moved to Martin.
After the Second World War, the Academy of Fine Arts was founded in Bratislava, and in the years 1949 – 1952, Ľudovít Fulla headed the Department of Monumental and Decorative Painting. He was forced to leave this position for political reasons. In the 1950s, when the method of socialist realism imported from the Soviet Union affected Slovak art "widespread", the artist was accused of "nationalistic formalism". Considered to be a painter of "only decorative art", he illustrated Dobšinský's Slovak Fairy Tales (1952) in this period, creating a classic work of children's literature that transcended the borders of Slovakia in its significance.
In 1956, Fulla left Bratislava for good and retired for the second time, this time to Žilina, where he set up his private gallery. In the partially relaxed social atmosphere of the late 1950s, Full's works were included in the design of the Czechoslovak pavilion at EXPO 58 in Brussels, which became a symbol of the turning point, modernization and Europeanization of Czechoslovakia. Fulla won a gold medal for a tapestry woven after the older painting Song and Work.
The 1960s gradually brought the art-historical and social rehabilitation of Full's modernist work as well. In the late 1960s, according to his designs, they realized mosaics for the Czechoslovak pavilion at EXPO 67 in Montreal and for the representative premises of Bratislava Castle.
Since 1962 he lived and worked in Ružomberok. In 1966 and 1977, he donated a large part of his work to the state. He became a "tenant" in his own museum, which was established by the state based on his donation in his hometown.
In a new, European, stylish quality, Fulla tried to raise the question of whether it is possible to be European and Slovak at the same time. From the thirties of the 20th century, he combined in his work in a special way procedures inspired by current European avant-garde painting, folk art, children's creative expression, icon painting and medieval art. The result was an original artistic language characterized by a synthesis of rational, constructive construction of form with intense, emotional colour.
From the doctrine of "absolute painting", which he perceived as a "diagram of the soul", "play and pleasure", "line shapes and colour surfaces", Fulla also turned to the more traditionally constructed theme of Slovak painting of the 20th century, to the search for and expression of the national myth. move to the level of an authentic painting statement and express the so-called Slovak myth in contemporary artistic language.
In 2022, we commemorate the 120th anniversary of the birth of Ľudovít Fulla.
The author of the proposal is Matej Gabriš.
Euro Souvenir ĽUDOVÍT FULLA 120th birth anniversary
Quantity: 5000 pcs
Price: €3
Sale date: 9/4/2022 from 10:00
Place of sale: Ľudovít Fulla Gallery, Dušana Makovický 1, 034 01 Ružomberok
