Janko Alexy

Painter, writer — and the man who pushed through the restoration of Bratislava Castle. The son of a saddler from Liptovský Mikuláš, he studied at the Prague Academy under Vlaho Bukovac, Max Pirner and Max Švabinský and spent 1920 in Paris; from 1927 he devoted himself to art alone, lived in Martin and Piešťany and returned to Bratislava in 1937. Together with Benka and Fulla he belongs to the founding personalities of Slovak modern art.

His pastels — his most personal technique — draw on ballads, folk songs and legends; his vast output comprises some 1,300 oils, pastels, temperas and drawings, later also tapestries and stained glass. As a writer he published more than twenty books (The Fates of Slovak Artists, Life Is No Maypole Feast), founded the magazine Svojeť with Gejza Vámoš in 1922 and, in the 1950s, played a decisive part in the reconstruction of Bratislava Castle. He held the title of National Artist.