Gustáv Mallý

The teacher of Slovak modernism: his private school in Bratislava was attended by Fulla, Sokol, Mudroch, Želibský, Majerník and Ester Šimerová. Born in Vienna, he spent his childhood in Skalica; he trained in Prague with Karel Záhorský (1894 – 1896), at the Prague School of Applied Arts and at the Dresden Academy, and in 1901 – 1902 travelled to the United States. He settled in Trlinok (today Vinosady) near Pezinok and in 1903, with Jaroslav Augusta and Emil Pacovský, founded the Group of Hungarian-Slovak Painters based in Žilina.

In 1911 he opened a private painting school in Bratislava, co-founded the Union of Slovak Artists (1919) and the Slovak Art Society (1921); from 1941 he headed the department of drawing and painting at the Slovak University of Technology and in 1946 became a professor at Comenius University. His realist-expressive scenes from the Slovak countryside — mothers, shepherds, raftsmen on the Orava — are held by the Slovak National Gallery.