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Died 31 December 2016, Martin, Slovakia | ||
Ladislav Záborský (22 January 1921 in Tisovec – 31 December 2016 in Martin) was a Slovak painter.
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Life
He went to high school in Banská Bystrica and studied at the Drawing and Painting Department of the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, his main professors were Martin Benka, Gustáv Mallý and Ján Mudroch.
In 1945 he married Gabriela Bartošová. Together they had three children: Vladimír (born in 1946, living in Bojnice), Terézia (*1947, living in Croix, France), Mária (*1951, living in Martin).
After graduation he worked as high school teacher in Martin. Because of his religious activities he was condemned to seven year imprisonment and stayed from 1953 to 1957 in the prisons of Ružomberok, Praha and Valdice. He experienced interrogation, intimidation, demanding prison conditions and threatening, too. He spent five months in solitary confinement where he wrote thirty poems depicting his feelings and talks to God. It is a kind of his chronicle from prison.
As he was forbidden to continue to work as high school teacher, he started a career as book illustrator, painter and church artist (stained glass windows in 25 churches and 21 "Stations of the Cross"). He is now living in Martin.
In 1968-69 he stayed for a study visit to Paris and Brittany.
Work
The essence of his work is linked to the experience of his inner life. Each painting is an attempt to discover God and a dialogue with eternity. He is more than a religious painter; he is a painter of spiritual light. He says about himself: "The substance of my work is the experience of God transferred into my heart (...) Art that seeks truth and beauty, is the anticipation of eternity." He sees the weakness of abstract art in the absence of truth in beauty.
His work was shown in exhibitions in the following cities: Venice/Italy (1943); Košice (1946, 1993); Ružomberok (1947); Poprad (1960, 1963); Starý Smokovec (1962); París/France (1969); Žilina (1972, 1983, 1999, 2006); Bratislava (1973); Trnava (1973); Martin, Turčianska galéria (1991, 1996, 2001, 2006); Tisovec (1974); Liptovský Mikuláš (1995); Piešťany (1997); Vrútky (1999); Nitra (2000); Vranov nad Topľou (2001); Topoľčany (2002); Kežmarok (2007).
Paintings
Among his paintings are:
