On display are also sketches and photographs from the performance Maurice Maeterlinck: The Blue Bird, Ljubljana Puppet Theatre, 1964, director: Jože Pengov, visual design: France Mihelič.
Photo archives: Alenka Puhar, Škofja Loka Museum, France Mihelič

Here to Stay
The majority of artwork by France Mihelič features endless hints of spaces depicting dramatic scenes from his life.
They usually stem from his memories and wishes. His art is a doorway to fantastical artistic worlds permeated with fleeting moments and his desire for constant travels through various shapes and their variations. Mihelič is meticulous about shapes, clearly recreating their essence while maintaining his authentic style.
The imaginary space in the background is always wide open towards endlessness and timelessness.
His cycles of drawings mainly depict nocturnal insect-like creatures, human-like shapes, the traditional kurent mask and female figures.
The metamorphoses that can be observed in his depictions of humans, fauna and flora are the artist’s memories of events, his reactions to them and an impression of his entire life.
Miloš Bašin

Here we are in the magical studio of the painter, illustrator and professor France Mihelič (1907–1988), our internationally-acclaimed artist. He borrowed the words of the Basque philosopher Miguel de Unamuno to describe his art: the expression of a tragic sense of life. His artistic DNA – marked by the extreme social anxiety of the first half of the 20th century and a young man running from death, in an era of revolutions and wars, millions of deaths including those of loved ones – spanned over his expressionistic student years, followed by the rebellious New Objectivity and then to the flourishing of fantastic art, which was Mihelič’s response to “Russian” social realism and “American” abstract art following World War II. It was his fantastic art that earned him the Renato Carrain Award at the Venice Biennale in 1954, and the French novelist and literary critic Marcel Brion even proclaimed him one of the most original artists of this style in the world. In 1937, Mihelič lived through a fateful fascination with the kurent from Ptuj. Nearly two years later, when his young wife died, he became the dead kurent and she the dead Daphne on canvas. Both characters later underwent several metamorphoses. He and his second wife were also a unique artistic couple… In his work Mihelič explored an idea perhaps best expressed by Shakespeare: “We are such stuff / As dreams are made on.”

Niko Goršič

 France Mihelič, Venice Biennale Prize Winner at the Bežigrad Gallery 2
An exhibition of drawings, prints, and paintings by one of the preeminent Slovenian artists
The Kurent carnival masks and fantasy motifs in Mihelič’s art

France Mihelič was born on April 27^th, 1907 in Virmaše near Škofja Loka. In 1909 the family moved to a village near Ribnica; he attended primary and secondary schools in Ribnica. His first art teacher was painter Janko Trošt. Between 1923 and 1927 he attended the Teachers’ College in Ljubljana. While in Ljubljana he also took classes at the Probuda private school of drawing, where Matej Sternen and Mirko Šubic were among his teachers. Between 1927 and 1931 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. His professors there were J. Kljaković, M. Vanka, T. Krizman, V. Becić, and L. Babić. He worked as a teacher in Kruševac, Serbia, from 1934 until 1936. From 1936 onward he taught drawing at the gymnasium secondary school in Ptuj. From 1945 until his retirement he worked as a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana. He served two terms as the Rector of the Academy, first from 1951 to 1953, and second from 1961 to 1963. He was also nominated Professor Emeritus. From 1965 on he was a member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
In 1938 he joined in the activities of the Club of Independent Slovenian Artists as a guest artist. He won numerous accolades for his creative output, including the Prešeren Award in 1948, 1955, and 1965; the Jakopič Award in 1978; the AVNOJ Award in 1970; the Golden Order of Freedom of the Republic of Slovenia in 1972, and the Golden Order of the Republic of Slovenia in 1996. He received the Levstik Award for his book illustrations in 1949, 1951, 1952, and 1956.
In 1954, he received a prize for his print Renato Carrain at the 27^th Venice Biennale. In 1955, he won the Grand Prix at the 1^st Biennial of Graphic Arts in Ljubljana, which he was forced to renounce. In 1958 he won a Purchase Award at the 1^st Triennial of Color Prints in Grenchen, in 1957 the Sabro Purchase Award at the 4^th Sao Paulo Biennial, in 1959 the National Prize at the 3^rd Biennial of Graphic Arts in Ljubljana, in 1968 the Guido Neri Award at the 1^st Biennial of Prints in Florence, and in 1963 and 1966 the Grand Prix at the Sombor Triennial 0of Contemporary Yugoslav Drawing.
The Mihelič Gallery in Ptuj has had a collection of his drawings and prints since 1992, and the Kašča Gallery in Škofja Loka a permanent collection of his paintings and prints since 1995. His works are included in museum collections worldwide; in Slovenia, in the collections of the National Gallery of Slovenia, the Moderna galerija / Museum of Modern Art in Ljubljana, the City Art Gallery Ljubljana, the Maribor Art Gallery, the Ptuj Museum, and the Škofja Loka Museum.
Mihelič produced drawings, illustrations, paintings, prints, tapestries, puppets, sets for theater and puppet productions, and their designs. He was very active also as an organizer of art events and other art-related activities, serving on competition juries, such as the international jury of the Bianco e nero exhibition of prints in Lugano.
He passed away on August 1^st, 1998 in Ljubljana.