The Maribor Art Gallery is collaborating with the Slovenska Bistrica Institute for Culture for the first time by hosting the exhibition Ivan Kos from the UGM Collection. At the Maribor Art Gallery, we strive to promote and raise the profile of classic artists from the gallery’s collection, especially those who are not widely known, so we were pleased to accept the invitation to collaborate.
Ivan Kos was one of the most important artists in Maribor in the 1920s and 1930s. The Art Gallery holds around 150 of his works: paintings, drawings, watercolours, and prints. The exhibition presents a selection of the most representative works from the artist’s rich oeuvre: expressive prints from his time studying at the Prague Academy, excellent paintings in the spirit of New Objectivity, an exceptional portrait cycle of beggars from the early 1930s, and masterful watercolours. Ivan Kos moved through various stylistic directions in his work. While echoes of Expressionism can be seen in his early works up to around 1924, some of his finest paintings were created at the end of the 1920s and are classified as part of the New Objectivity movement. This artistic movement sought to convey real life through calm forms and more controlled, rational, and emotionally detached images. His painting Girl with an Orange (1927) from this period is something of a hallmark of the Maribor Art Gallery collection and one of the finest portraits in Slovenian visual art.
Ivan Kos (1895–1981) was one of the most prominent visual artists in Maribor in the 20th century, and his significance extends beyond the local environment. He was born in Gornja Radgona, and in 1908 his family moved to Maribor, where he attended grammar school. Ivan Kos first studied painting at the Academy in Vienna and completed his studies in Prague, where he became friends with Ante Trstenjak, who introduced him to the secrets of watercolour. After graduating in 1924, he returned to Maribor, where he founded the “Club of the Young” together with Nikolaj Pirnat and Fran Stiplovšek. In 1925, he made a study visit to Italy, and that same year took up a post as a drawing teacher at the Maribor Classical Grammar School. In the 1930s, he was actively involved in organising artistic life in Maribor, was among the founders of the “Brazda” club, and also exhibited regularly. He was an active member of the Maribor Association of Fine Artists; in 1961, he received the Prešeren Award for forty years of work, and in 1966, he also received the City of Maribor Award.
Exhibition curator: Andreja Borin.