Štefan Bubán

An academic painter and teacher who gave the East Slovak Lowland a painterly language of its own. Born in Pavlovce nad Uhom (1932), he completed the art department of the Higher Pedagogical School in Prešov (1955) and the Faculty of Education of Comenius University in Bratislava; his work moved from figurative compositions through the landscape of Zemplín to geometric-abstract visions. He was a member of the Slovak Art Society, the Italian group Giuseppe de Nittis and the Paris Société d'Arts, and exhibited regularly at the Salon d'Automne in Paris.

He left behind seventy solo and nearly three hundred group exhibitions, the Gold Plaque of the international festival of contemporary painting in San Remo (1999), the European Commission's Prize for Culture at the il Nittis Biennial in Barletta (2003) and a silver medal from the Salon in Cannes (2006); in 2008 – 2016 his paintings were on long-term display at the Permanent Representation of Slovakia to the European Union in Brussels. He died on 9 May 2026 at the age of 93; View of Zemplín in our collection is a tribute to the region he painted all his life.