Ľudovít Fulla

A painter of radiant colours who forged his own modernism out of Slovak folklore and icons. After a year at Gustáv Mallý's private school in Bratislava he studied at the Prague School of Applied Arts under Arnošt Hofbauer and František Kysela (1922 – 1927); there he befriended Mikuláš Galanda, with whom he published the Private Letters of Fulla and Galanda in 1930 – 1932 — the first manifesto of modern Slovak painting. From 1928 he taught at the Bratislava School of Arts and Crafts, and after the war he headed the department of monumental and decorative painting at the Academy of Fine Arts.

His painting Song and Labour won the Grand Prix at the 1937 Paris World's Fair, and the tapestry woven after it a gold medal at Expo 1958 in Brussels; in 1963 he was made a National Artist. He illustrated the folk tales of Pavol Dobšinský, and his tapestries count among the founding works of that art in Slovakia. In 1969 the state built the Ľudovít Fulla Gallery for him in his native Ružomberok — today part of the Slovak National Gallery — where he lived and worked for ten years and where his work is on permanent display.