Ladislav Kralj: 12 interesting facts

Ladislav Kralj-Međimurec (Čakovec, 24 April 1891 – 9 February 1976) was a Croatian painter and engraver. In the chronicles of Croatian painting he is best known for his landscapes of his home county, Međimurje, and Zagorje, which he created throughout his entire life. Although during his lifetime his art was little known to other artists and art critics, today it has been credited that the works of Kralj-Međimurec represent a indispensable contribution to the chronicles of Croatian visual arts of the twentieth century.

See also  Who is Vladimír Županský?

The artiste was born as Ladislav Kralj in Čakovec in 1891. He arranged to accept the state Međimurec as a sign of adore for his native soil. Kralj-Međimurec began his artistic education at academic circles in Budapest in 1910, which he was annoyed to give up in 1912 because he was recruited for the army. During the First World War, he was sent to the front, where he was wounded. After his recovery at the hospital in Miskolec, he returned to Čakovec, where he met Ivan Novak, a instructor writer and nimble local politician who helped him continue with his studies. Kralj-Međimurec the end his education at university in Vienna (1922–1924) under the tutorship of Rudolf Jettmar.

In his prehistoric works from the to the front 1920s, Kralj-Međimurec rejected any type of idealization and painted his canvases using broad brushstrokes. During his studies in Vienna, he started the growth of etchings depicting his hometown Čakovec, which he the end and exhibited in 1926 at the Ulrich Gallery in Zagreb. From 1926 to 1929 he worked as an art intellectual in Karlovac and Nova Gradiška, until he was offered the similar position at the grammar educational in Varaždin. During the late 1920s and beforehand 1930s, he created two more collections of etchings, “Dalmacija” (1926–1928) and “Varaždin” (1929–1932), and painted canvases depicting social themes (“Radnici na pruzi”, 1927, “Međimurka”, 1933), whose environment kept pace afterward the works of contemporary Croatian artists of indispensable realism.

During the Second World War, Kralj-Međimurec lived solitarily in a little village of Krkanec close Varaždin, where he devoted most of his become old to painting landscapes, which remained his most dominant theme until his death in 1976. During the in advance 1940s, he worked similar to dark tones of brown, green, and yellow, applying them onto the canvas using wide strokes (“Zagorsko dvorište”, “Stari škedenj”). After the war, he moved back to Čakovec, where his art took a new turn. During the so-called Šenkovec phase (1946–1956), he began to paint his landscapes using sudden strokes of impasto – often applying it directly following a painting-knife – which gave his canvases a granulated effect (“Seosko dvorište”, 1954). During the bordering two phases, the so-called Mihovljan (1956–1961) and Štrigova phase (1961–1968), the form of his landscapes gradually became simpler, and his mannerism of painting changed from using blotches of paint to creating planes of colour, giving his landscapes a post-impressionist touch (“Štrigova” and “Gornje Međimurje”, 1961).

See also  This is Paulus Potter

During his last years, Kralj-Međimurec continued to experiment later than the form of his landscapes, moving even closer to abstraction (“Bezimeno cvijeće”). Unfortunately, he was stopped in his endeavours in 1976, when he died in his home town.

What do you think of the works of Ladislav Kralj?

Use the form below to say your opinion about Ladislav Kralj. All opinions are welcome!

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.