About the City Art Gallery of Ljubljana

History of the City Art Gallery of Ljubljana

The building at Mestni trg 5 was built in the early 16th century by Count Lanthieri. After having been a home for his family for 200 years, the house was acquired by the well-off trading family Zeschko in the 19th century. The great art lover Josipina Zeschko lived here, known as the “Glass Princess” due to her father’s trade in glass, who was later married to the manufacturer and big landowner Fidelis Terpinc, the owner of Fužine Castle. In 1866, the house was bought by the trader Hamann. It remained in use as a commercial building – until more recently there was a fur shop – up until 1963, when it was turned into an art gallery by way of a decree adopted by the Ljubljana Centre municipal people's committee. The building’s renovation according to plans designed by the architect Boris Kobe was managed by the Institute for the Regulation of Old Ljubljana.

After the Jakopič Pavilion started to be demolished in December 1961, the Pavilion’s directorate was left without business premises and an exhibition space. In November 1962, the Jakopič Pavilion was renamed the City Art Gallery whereby the expert public’s concerns as to the Jakopič Pavilion’s legal succession and the related construction of a new pavilion were allayed.
The new exhibition rooms at Mestni trg 5 were formally inaugurated as the exhibition premises of the City Art Gallery in October 1963. Apart from modernised exhibition halls (renovated in 1990 and 1991) and the renovated attic, the Gallery also acquired a café on the ground floor and in 2009 a reading room, where its visitors and art lovers are provided with a wide range of daily newspapers, catalogues as well as modern art magazines from Slovenian and foreign publishers.

After 50 years of engaging in exhibition activities and hosting numerous projects, the Gallery only started to form its own collection in the 1990s. In 1996, upon the acquisition of new premises at Mestni trg 4, the first exhibition of the permanent collection of the City Art Gallery of Ljubljana was staged. The collection which in 2009 became an integral part of the MGML collection comprises 190 works on paper by 70 Slovenian and six foreign artists. Since 1995, i.e. the year of commencing the collection activity, works by all prominent exponents of Slovenian art of the 20th century have been acquired, evidencing progress in the artists’ creative directions. As the collection policy provided for the acquisition of works by artists belonging to diverse periods and artistic styles, the collection’s span is therefore extensive – ranging from traditional, realistic depictions of the material world to fantastic and abstract representations. Owing to its heterogeneity in terms of ideas and the variety of technical approaches, the collection provides excellent opportunities for study.
In 2002, one section of the exhibition activity was moved to new premises, i.e. the Permanent Collection Gallery at Cankarjevo nabrežje 11/I. It was here that presentations of artists of different artistic styles mainly creating on paper were being held until December 2010.

The Bežigrad Gallery – one of Ljubljana’s smaller art galleries – has been active within the framework of the City Art Gallery since 1996. In addition, the Bežigrad Gallery II was opened in 2002. In 2009, at the initiative of the Municipality of Ljubljana, the City Art Gallery of Ljubljana including the Bežigrad Gallery was merged with the City Museum of Ljubljana to form an institution now called the Museum and Galleries of Ljubljana. In 2010, new premises in the Tobačna 001 Cultural Centre were acquired. In March 2011, a new exhibiting programme was launched in the 001 Gallery.


Exhibitions of the City Art Gallery of Ljubljana

During the 50 years of uninterrupted operation, numerous exhibitions were put on, with the Gallery’s programme changing in accordance with cultural needs and the growing exhibition opportunities in Ljubljana. The emphasis has been on a well-balanced relationship between exhibitions dealing with domestic and international artistic production, and between group and solo exhibitions, with a special focus on retrospective and overview exhibitions of renowned artists and monographic exhibitions of younger artists.
When faced with concrete exhibition-related problems, the Gallery has always provided its expert potential and invited both local and foreign experts to participate in addressing certain issues pertaining to individual areas and art genres. Moreover, our guests’ position on art could then be affirmed by selected exhibitions.
By organising retrospective and overview exhibitions, the Gallery has put on display many works of art by many of the most renowned Slovenian artists from various generations whilst, by exhibiting the current art production, the Gallery has attempted to present a specific excerpt from individual artists’ oeuvres. Special attention has always been paid to presenting younger artists and, especially, new generations of artists. The Gallery has always aimed to identify the most outstanding art phenomena in Slovenia.

Since 2009, the Gallery's exhibition programme has included the organisation of two overview or retrospective exhibitions of Slovenian artists a year, group presentations of modern Slovenian and international artists who, by using different media, show their integration into current artistic and social contexts and society at large. In triennial periods, extensive thematic historical exhibitions are staged whose aim is to present the development of a certain artistic element, style, theme or content.