Jozef Hanula: Reminiscences

The exhibition project offers the first comprehensive overview of works from the collections of various Slovak galleries and private archives. The project presents works from the artist’s most productive creative period within the context of the development of Slovak fine art. These remarkable artworks, featuring authentic elements of Slovak folklore of the period, opened up new directions in Slovak art in which depictions of common people and everyday life came to the fore. The project is based on academic research which builds upon the re-evaluation of the works which feature in the permanent exhibition of Hanula’s art at the Gallery of Spiš Artists which are drawn from the Gallery’s own collection. The exhibition is presented as part of the Profiles / Spiš Artists dramaturgical cycle of exhibitions.

The exhibition approaches the oeuvre of Jozef Hanula through a selection of important works from the collections of several galleries across Slovakia (the Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava, the Liptov Gallery of Petr Michal Bohúň in Liptovský Mikuláš, the East Slovak Gallery in Košice, the Central Slovak Gallery in Banská Bystrica, the Ernest Zmeták Art Gallery in Nový Zámky and the Gallery of Spiš Artists in Spišská Nová Ves), from private collections and from the artist’s own estate. The collections of these galleries have furnished 72 paintings, drawings, sketches and studies which illustrate the development of Hanula’s art over the entirety of his artistic career. The artist’s archival estate consists of a further 265 items which predominantly consist of preparatory designs and sketches for murals.

The exhibition titled Jozef Hanula: Reminiscences is a homage to the remarkable artistic and educational activities of this Slovak artist. Among the greatest contributions which Jozef Hanula made to the Slovak cultural milieu is his focus on themes from folk genres. In the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, Hanula created a series of works in which formal sophistication was combined with efforts to psychologise portrait depictions and capture period details. Hanula admired folk customs, the songs and dances, the sophistication and variations of kroj, the traditional Slovak folk costume, and these rustic details not only appear in his genre works but were also integrated into his later sacral works. 

Mgr. Kamila Paceková, kurátorka výstavy

About the artist
Jozef Hanula was born on April 6^th 1863 in Tri Sliače (now Liptovské Sliače) region to a family of farmers and folk woodcarvers. He completed his earliest professional studies at the Budapest School of Landscape Painting and Preparatory School for Teachers of Drawing in 1881 and 1882 under Professors Imre Greguss, Bertalan Székely and Karol Lotz. From 1886 to 1889 he continued his studies in Budapest at the Hungarian Royal Institute for Drawing and Teachers of Drawing. He continued his artistic education in Munich, first at the private school of Simon Hollósy (1891) but he also attended the studio of Jaroslav Věšín, and finally from 1892 to 1896 he studied at the Royal Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts under Professors Gabriel von Hackl, Karol Marr and Franz von Defregger. He was appointed briefly as a Slovak language teacher at the Real Gymnasium in Žilina, but from April 1919 to August 1932 he taught Slovak language and drawing at the State Burger School in Spišská Nová Ves. In addition to this work, he also collaborated in the publication of the first Slovak newspaper in the Spiš region, “Tatry”, of which he was also an editor. From 1920 he was a representative of the Štefánik Circle, the first Slovak association on the territory of Spišská Nová Ves, and he was also a founding member of the Association of Fine Artists in Martin and the long-serving chairman of the Matice Slovenská, a fine arts association. On the occasion of his 75^th birthday in 1938, he was awarded the “Štefánik Artistic Prize for the Fine Arts” for lifelong achievement, and in 1941 he was the third artist after Martin Benka and Ľudovít Fulla to be awarded the laureate state prize “for lifelong achievement in the field of fine art painting”. In 1940, the Matice Slovenská published his autobiography titled “Memoirs of a Slovak Painter”. He died on August 22^nd 1944 in Spišská Nová Ves where he was also buried.