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France Kralj (1895 - 1960)
Kralj was born on 26 September 1895 in Zagorica near Dobrepolje and died on 16 February 1960 in Ljubljana. He studied at the School of Art and Crafts in Ljubljana (1907-1912, under Prof. A. Repič) and then worked in the sculpture workshop of A. Progar in Klagenfurt for a year. He studied sculpture at the Art Academy in Vienna (1913-1915, continuing after World War I from 1918-1919, under Professors J. Müllner, Schmidt, E. von Hellmer) and painting in Prague (1919-1920, Prof. V. Bukovac). He made study visits to Italy and Paris. From 1920 on he lived in Ljubljana, where he had a studio and where he taught at the Technical Secondary School from 1925 to 1945, at which he ran a school of ceramics. He was the initiator and founder of the Club of Young Visual Artists of Ljubljana (Klub mladih upodabljajočih umetnikov, also known as Klub mladih/Club of the Young 1921, and in 1926 renamed the Slovene Art Society, which F. Kralj presided over) and the Slovenski lik Society (1934). After World War II he received little attention due to political reasons. During this period he created monotypes. In 1954 he exhibited at the Venice Biennial. On 21 October 1983 a permanent exhibition of his art was opened in Kostanjevica na Krki, while on 8 May 1992 the display of a private collection of his works was opened to the public in Kamnik. He devoted equal attention to painting, sculpture, ceramics, graphic prints, illustration and, after the war, monotype (in which he perfected the symbolism of form and colour, the basis on which he had created his earlier expressionist works; during the intermediate period of his artistic career his art approached the principles of Neue Sachlichkeit or New Objectivity).
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