Lojze Spacal (1907 - 2000)

Spacal was born on 15 June 1907 in Trieste. He decided to dedicate himself to painting during his banishment to Southern Italy (1929-1932), after which he graduated from the art lyceum in Venice, passing the examination qualifying him to be a lecturer in Rome (1934). After one year of teaching drawing in Trieste, he enrolled at the art college in Monza (a school of arts and crafts based on the Bauhaus model; Professors Semeghini, De Grada, Pica, Pagano) in 1936 and attended a private course at Milan's Brera. He was once again imprisoned during the war. He went to Ljubljana for the first time in 1945 on the occassion of an exhibition of the works of Trieste artists. This exhibition and particularly Spacal's magic realism, (an independent exhibition of his work was mounted by the Moderna galerija in 1955) had a strong influence on the post-war generation of Slovene visual artists. He received numerous Italian awards (including the First State Award at the Biennial of Graphic Art in Venice in 1955 and the International Grand Prix for Drawing and Graphic Art at the XXIXth Venice Biennial in 1958), Yugoslav awards (including the Grand Prix at the 3rd International Biennial of Graphic Art in Ljubljana in 1959 and the Prešeren Award in 1974). He has been an associate correspondent member of the Slovene Academy of Science and Art since 1987. He continues to be an important representative of the meeting of two cultures through his art (stylized motifs of the Karst) and his life (in Trieste and Škrbina in the Karst region). In 1988 a permanent exhibition of his work was opened in the renovated wing of Štanjel castle. His work includes paintings, drawings, graphic prints and sculpture, while his mosaics, frescoes and tapestries adorn a number of public buildings and ships.

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