Vladimír Kompánek

A sculptor and painter of the village archetype and a co-founder of the Mikuláš Galanda Group. Born in Rajec, he studied in 1947 – 1949 at the Slovak University of Technology and in 1949 – 1954 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava. His wooden sculptures of the 1960s — the protective deities of the home, field signs, women and totems abstracted from folk architecture and the tree — rank among the most distinctive expressions of Slovak sculpture; in painting he returned to the motif of carnival masks.

In 1967 he received the Herder Prize in Vienna; there followed the Martin Benka Prize (2002), the Miloš Alexander Bazovský Prize (2003), the Order of Ľudovít Štúr (2007) and the Crystal Wing for lifetime achievement. A close friend of Dominik Tatarka, he also made wooden toys, which stand in enlarged form on children's playgrounds, for instance in Piešťany.