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Janko Alexy

Janko Alexy (25 January 1894 in Liptovský Mikuláš – 22 September 1970 in Bratislava) was a famous painter, writer, and publicist of Slovak origin. He is generally recognized (together with Martin Benka and Ľudovít Fulla) as one of key personalities in the beginning of Modern Slovak Art.

Life
He studied at the Akademie Výtvarných Umění (Academy of Visual Arts) in Prague by Vlaho Bukovac, Maximilian Pirner and Max Švabinský. He lived in Liptovský Mikuláš, Martin and from 1937 in Bratislava.

He began his creative artistic career with socially motivated expressive works from the environment of the urban periphery, as he called it. He developed genre painting in an original way, inspired by ballads, folk songs and legends (Hôrni chlapci – Mountain Robbers). He also devoted attention to stained glass and tapestries. Pastel was his most characteristic artistic technique. Alexy’s decorative genre of pastels is prevalent throughout his rural pieces (Kúria Baanovcov v Trstenom – Curia of the Baans in Trstené). Alexy was especially adept at painting cityscapes, though peculiarly, for usually an air of abstract expressionism resided in the works.

He also created several models for architectural projects, e.g. the window-pane at the P. O. Hviezdoslav Theatre in Bratislava.

In his literary works J. Alexy preferred themes from the life of Slovak bohemia and autobiographical topics: Život nie je majáles (1956, Life is Not a May Festival), Osudy slovenských výtvarníkov (1948, Destinies of Slovak Graphic and Plastic Artists).

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Creating
He is one of the founders of Slovak art modernism and was the organizer of cultural life. His literary work is anchored in the personal experiences of childhood and youth. It is characterized by improvisation lightness, gentle humor with a subtle dose of self-harmony, sincerity and emotional spontaneity. There are several portraits of baby figures in it, and the narrator himself gives his stories from the aspect of a bouncing boy whose dreams of a world of beauty, love and goodness come up against the hard edges of real life (Horse, Greta, Maids and others). The short story Ondrejko is one of the artistically more pervasive images of social crimes perpetrated against children in the interwar period of the last century and manifests the authors of compassion for humiliated and suffering. But this compassion does not grow into sentimentality. Ondrejko dreams of a great human experience even in misery and death.

His extensive work includes about 1,300 oils, pastel, tempira and drawings inspired by folk art, legends and landscapes. In the 1950s he created compositions for architecture and tapestries. Later he returned to inspiration from folk art. He significantly contributed to the reconstruction of the Bratislava Castle.

His literary activity was not a priority for him, but it was still consistent and significant – he published over 20 books. Together with Gejza Vámoš he published the literary-artistic magazine Svojeť, which was founded in 1922. The main feature of his prose works is the autobiographical style, the immediacy of his childhood and study experiences, as well as the characters and atmosphere of Bratislava’s artistic environment. He also endeavored to support the life optimism of his works with the experiences of his travels in Slovakia.

Literary Work
1924 – Jarmilka, a book of short prose; the introduction was written by Štefan Krčméry
1928 – Grétka, collection of short prose
1930 – Easter, collection of short prose
1932 – In a free scourge, a book of fictions and features
1935 – Hooray, novel debut (2 parts)
1936 – He’s a guy on his feet, a novel
1940 – The Golden Bottom
1942 – Dom burns, a novel about the lives of his family
1946 – Forgotten world, selection of prose
1948 – The Fates of Slovak Artists, Fictional Life Stories of Art Artists [A selection of biographical portraits of Slovak artists was later published in the book: The Palette of Words. Bratislava: Tatran, 1974, p. 9–166]
1949 – Professor Klopačka, novel
1956 – Life Is Not Majáles [The text was later published in the book: A Word Palette. Bratislava: Tatran, 1974, p. 169-241]
1956 – Ondrejko
1957 – Fruit matures
1970 – There fame came to life, a memorial-documentary work on the reconstruction of the Bratislava Castle

Source from Wikipedia

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