The sculptural oeuvre of Ivan Zajec, the author of the
Prešeren Monument in Ljubljana, has not been thoroughly studied yet. It
encompasses public monuments, sepulchral, ecclesiastical and architectural
sculpture as well as portrait, allegorical and genre motifs. In terms of style,
it ranges from historicist idioms and Art Nouveau to individual attempts at
picturesque Impressionism and programmatic post-war Socialist Realism.
It was his father, sculptor Franc Ksaver Zajec, who
inspired Ivan Zajec to start sculpting. In his father's workshop, the young man
acquired the first skills in sculpture, after which the family’s wealthy
relative Josipina Hočevar of Krško enabled him to study at the Vienna Academy.
There he studied in the years 1889–1893 with Edmund von Hellmer, the artist of
Viennese monumental sculpture of the time, and in 1896 he completed the special
course under Karl Kundmann. Good schooling provided him with reliable
technological and craft knowledge which is manifested in the handling of
details and in the skilful manipulation of various materials.
After the Prešeren Monument was unveiled in Ljubljana
on September 10, 1905, Zajec left for Paris in January 1906. It has been known
hitherto that he exhibited there in 1906, and sources also provide information
that he exhibited two works in the Paris Salon in the following year too;
besides, he had already exhibited in Paris as early as1900, namely at the World
International Exhibition. In August 1907, he travelled to New York. He
certainly travelled to London in the summer of 1912, which, however, does not
exclude his possible repeated trips to the British capital. In October 1910,
the sculptor moved to Trieste, and three years later to Rome, where he stayed
until 1915, when he was interned to Sardinia. In Rome, he exhibited his
sculpture Wounded Amazon in 1914, at
the Second International Exhibition of
the Secession. He returned from the internment on Sardinia in August 1919,
when he registered his place of residence in Ljubljana, where he settled for
the rest of his life. After returning to Ljubljana, the sculptor lived without
a job for quite a few years, because, as we can see from his letters and
personal notes, he was denied by the authorities the acknowledgement to be a
nationally important artist. Confirmed has been Zajec's participation in the
art competition at the 1924 Olympic Games, and the title of the work has been
found with which he entered the competition. From 1927 until his retirement in
1940, he taught modelling at the Department of Architecture of the Technical
Faculty in Ljubljana. After the Second World War, he received state financial
support, when early in 1947 he was awarded an accolade and came under the
official protection of the state. In 1950, he received a lifetime achievement
award, the Prešeren Prize.
Despite the impact of contemporary
French examples, the sculptural oeuvre of Ivan Zajec was most deeply influenced
by the professors of the Vienna Academy and their already erected monuments
along the Vienna Ring. The sculptor could admire them daily during his long
stay in Vienna and they served him as models both in designing his monument and
tombstone sculpture and in sculpture in general.
The exhibition displays fity-seven works in marble, bronze, plaster and clay, which the sculptor designed in the
centres where he was living and creating, namely: Ljubljana, Vienna and Munich,
Paris, New York, Trieste, Dubrovnik, London, Rome, internment on Sardinia, and
final settlement in his native Ljubljana. Presented are also archival
biographical excerpts, information on schooling, later teaching work, the
sculptor's financial situation, his extensive oeuvre, commissions, production
for the free market and status independence compared to the Slovene sculptors,
his contemporaries.
Author of the exhibition
Mateja Breščak
Project
leader
Kristina
Preininger
Conservation-restoration
works for the exhibition
Tina Buh, Barbara
Dragan, Miha Pirnat, Andreja Ravnikar, Matevž Sterle, National Gallery of
Slovenia
Zala Debevec, Martina Vuga, Academy of Fine Arts and
Design
Tadeja Trajkovski, Božidar Jakac Art Museum
Liza Lampič,
Katarina Toman Kracina, Museum and Galleries of Ljubljana
Institute for
the Protecton of Cultural Heritage of Slovenia, Restoration Centre
Exhibition set-up and design
Ranko Novak
The works of art
were loaned by
Antikvitete
Novak Art Gallery
Božidar Jakac
Art Museum
Gorenjska Museum
Riko Art
Collection
Škofja
Loka Museum
Museum and Galleries of Ljubljana
private owners
Vok
Collection
The project was supported by