Tone Kralj is one of the most recognizable Slovene visual artists,
exceptional also within the European context. His stance is distinctly ethical,
marked with a strongly expressed social sense. He belongs to those artists
whose work, due to its distinct idiosyncratic features, resists simplified
stylistic and ideological labels that either regionally positioned him mainly
as a religious painter or sought primarily a national-iconographic context for
his work.
The current exhibition is based on the selection of about eightyfour
works from the collections of the National Gallery of Slovenia in Ljubljana and
Galerija Božidar Jakac – Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Kostanjevica
na Krki, where, upon its establishment in 1974, the artist also received a permanent exhibition of
works from the Tone Kralj Collection, by which his oeuvre was definitely placed
within a more lasting museum context. It is part of a wider collaboration of
institutions in presenting national art heritage. It is not only a
matter of transportation of works from the regional environmentto the central
national institution, but it is a symbolic completion of the artist's institutional
path and a renewed estimation of his oeuvre within a wider Slovene and European
context.
The exhibition is mainly focused on the period between the years 1919
and 1940, when Kralj’s expression was formed in the dialogue with European
modernist streams, from symbolism and expressive figurative art to the New
Objectivity and monumental realism. Tone Kralj is represented by painting,
sculptural and printmaking oeuvre, together with a very significant segment of
his artistic production – illustrations and book design, which also extend into
the post-war period. These works are included into the exhibition as part of
the artist’s development, since it is exactly the field in which Kralj
consistently tests the relation between the figure, the meaning and the
narration.
The exhibition also features new acquisitions of the Galerija Božidar
Jakac – Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art that have not been on public
display for decades. The monumental work Salome (1931) will be shown for
the first time after the restoration intervention (Restoration Centre – IPCHS), and from the collection of the
National Gallery, the monumental painting The Last Supper (1928/1929)
will be shown which was exhibited in 1931 at the International Exhibition of
Modern Sacred Art in Padua, but – according to available information – has
probably never been on public display in Slovenia and was restored by the
restorers of the National Gallery specifically for this exhibition.
An exhibition catalogue has also
been published (in Slovenian and English), featuring reproductions of all
exhibited works and a text by the exhibition’s author, Goran Milovanović: Tone
Kralj: Between European Modernism, Sacred Art, and the Community Ethics.
Author of the exhibition
Goran
Milovanović
Project leader
Bernarda Stenovec
Exhibition set-up
Matic Tršar, Goran Milovanović
Graphic design
Matic Tršar
Conservation-restoration preparation of materials
Tina Buh, Barbara Dragan, Miha
Pirnat, Andreja Ravnikar, Matevž Sterle (National Gallery of Slovenia), Aleš
Vene (Galerija Božidar Jakac – Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art),
Zoja Bajde (Restoration Centre – IPCHS)
The project was supported by
16 April – 30 August 2026
National Gallery of Slovenia
Prešernova 24
1000 Ljubljana