Mikuláš Galanda: Paintings, Life & Art Prints

Who Was Mikuláš Galanda?

Mikuláš Galanda is one of the founders of modern Slovak art. Before him, painting in Slovakia was mostly realist landscape and village genre. Galanda brought in the new language of Paris and Prague, Cubism’s building blocks and Expressionism’s strong colour, and used it to paint Slovak subjects without falling into folklore. The Slovak National Gallery’s own catalogue text calls him “intellectually the most complex figure” of Slovak inter-war modernism, quoting the critic Marián Váross. Our Mikuláš Galanda art prints cover every side of that short career.

How to spot a Galanda:

1. Round, sculpted figures: women and children built from smooth, swelling volumes, as in Mother (Pink Madonna).
2. One continuous line: a single sure contour in pen or pencil that outlines a whole body, as in the Lovers (Song – Pastorale) drawing.
3. Few colours, softly blended: pinks, reds and earth tones, or a cool green or blue, often almost monochrome.
4. Slovak themes, modern form: brigands, pipers, herders, mothers in headscarves, painted as signs rather than costume pictures.
5. The signature: “M. Galanda” or a small monogram, often with a year, in a lower corner.

Turiec, Budapest and Prague

Galanda was born on 4 May 1895 in Turčianske Teplice, a spa town in the Turiec region of central Slovakia, then part of Hungary. His father, Štefan, was the local notary. He went to grammar school in Lučenec and in 1914 began studying painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest. The First World War ended his studies after two years. The Turiec hills stayed in his art all his life: look for Turiec, Štubnianske Teplice (the old name of his home town) and Hay Barns.

In 1922 he went to Prague, by then the capital of the new Czechoslovakia. He studied at the School of Applied Arts under the graphic designer V. H. Brunner, then moved to the Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied under August Brömse and Franz Thiele until 1927. In Prague he became friends with the painter Ľudovít Fulla, the partner of his later career.

Prague made him a printmaker first. From 1924 to 1926 he was the first art editor of DAV, the review of the young Slovak left-wing writers known as the Davisti, and he drew for its authors for the rest of his life. His early woodcuts, such as Sunny Road and A House in the Alley (both 1925), and the lithograph cycle Love in the City (1924–26) show him moving from dark, Expressionist contrasts toward his own clean line.

His first oils, such as Still Life with Ceramic Pots and Apples (1925–27), follow Cézanne. In an Inn (1927) is already a Cubist room of blocky drinkers in blue and grey.

Bratislava and the Private Letters

In 1929 Galanda moved to Bratislava to teach drawing at a girls’ school, and from 1930 he also taught at the city’s new School of Arts and Crafts (Škola umeleckých remesiel). The Slovak National Gallery describes the school, which ran from 1928 to 1939, as built on the newest European teaching ideas and close to the German Bauhaus. From 1929 to 1932 he shared a studio with Ľudovít Fulla. In 1933 he became a full professor at the school.

Together the two friends wrote and published Súkromné listy Fullu a Galandu (Private Letters of Fulla and Galanda), four issues between 1930 and 1932. The Slovak National Gallery calls it the first, and in fact the only, manifesto of avant-garde painting in Slovakia. It attacked conservative, middle-class taste and argued that a painting should stand on its own. In our own translation of lines the gallery quotes:

“A picture should look like a picture, not like a slice of landscape.” … “Art is play and pleasure … painting is a play of lines and colour-forms … the absolute picture is a diagram of the soul.”Ľudovít Fulla and Mikuláš Galanda, Súkromné listy, 1930–32 (as quoted by the Slovak National Gallery)

The paintings of these years put that idea to work. Factory (1930) is close to abstraction, a stack of flat coloured planes. Two Women (1931) builds two nudes, one standing and one reclining, from swelling pink shapes. Still Life with a Lamp and the collage drawing Landscape with a Chair (both 1929–30) play with forms the way the manifesto describes.

In autumn 1930 Galanda travelled to Paris. Drawings like Lovers (Memory of Paris) and a Tahitian girl in homage to Paul Gauguin, Girl from Tahiti (1930), show what he looked at there. He also married Mária Boudová, whom he had met in Prague in 1928 (sources give 1931 or 1932).

Mothers, Madonnas and the Pink Madonna

Mother and child was Galanda’s great theme. He painted, drew and engraved it dozens of times: as a Slovak village mother, a Madonna with angels, a mother with a dove or a poppy. His most famous painting, Mother (1933, oil on canvas, 55 × 45.5 cm), is better known as the Pink Madonna for its almost single-colour play of pink, silver and white.

The Slovak National Gallery describes it as one of the most important, and most often shown and reproduced, works of Slovak inter-war modernism. A neoclassical mother holding her child rises out of a flat red background, and soft shading makes the rounded forms look three-dimensional. It was already a centrepiece of the National Gallery in Martin when it was new, and it has been a key work of the Slovak National Gallery since it entered the collection in 1975.

The same tenderness runs through Mother with Child, the drawings Mother with Baby and Dove and Mother and Child with Poppy, the late Mother’s Embrace and religious pieces such as Standing Madonna with an Angel and a Pietà woodcut. Browse more in our family art prints and religious art prints.

Brigands, Pipers and Slovak Life

Galanda wanted to paint what it meant to be Slovak, but he refused to paint folk costume for its own sake. The Slovak National Gallery puts it plainly: Galanda did not paint folklore; he searched for a way to show the Slovak character with purely artistic means. A year before his death he said he wanted to find “the scent of Slovakia”, but he looked at it, as the gallery notes, with the distance of a city man.

The best examples are the brigands, the outlaws of Slovak legend led by the hero Jánošík. The Brigands (around 1932), known in Slovak as the Green Brigands, and the blue Brigands (1932–33) reduce the outlaws to huddled, rounded shapes against the mountains. Drawings such as Melancholy Highwaymen and Sad Bandits turn the swaggering heroes into sad, tender figures.

The Piper (1936–37), a bagpiper in a black hat playing for a young woman in folk dress, is one of his last large paintings; there is also a black-and-white print of the subject. Herders and animals fill many smaller works: Cows, Woodcutters and the ink drawing Slovak Family (1929). A 1936 holiday in the mountain village of Ždiar gave him the timber houses of Ždiar.

Lovers, Nudes and the Galanda Line

Galanda drew all the time, and a large part of his work, and of our collection, is drawing: pen, pencil, ink and wash. His line is the thing to look for. In the best sheets one unbroken contour shapes a whole body with no shading at all. Couples were a favourite subject, from Lovers (Song – Pastorale) (around 1929–30) to the colour sheet Lovers and Lovers Harlequin and Columbine.

Women washing, dressing or combing their hair are the other great series: Washing Hair, Woman Undressing (1932), Morning, Combing (Woman with a Mirror) and the late Seated Model (1936–37). See more in our nude art prints.

Our collection also holds more than a hundred pages from his sketchbooks: quick studies of heads, mothers, cows and nudes, which show how he worked toward a finished picture. They make an honest, affordable way to own his hand.

Town, Café and Clowns

Galanda was a city man, and the rougher side of Bratislava appears too: Drunkard (1933), the early Drunk (1927), Poor Family (around 1930), Blind Man (1934), Periphery and Street with a Pastry Shop. The left-wing DAV circle he drew for cared about poverty and work, and these pictures share that concern.

Clowns and the old Italian comedy gave him a more playful mask: Clown (1934), Pierrot’s Head (1932) and Harlequin with a Monkey on His Arm.

He painted the sea too: Fishing Boats (1932) and the calm blue The Adriatic (1935).

Book Art and Illustration

Galanda was one of the best book designers of his time in Czechoslovakia. He illustrated poems and stories by left-wing Slovak writers, including Fraňo Kráľ and Laco Novomeský, and his fine-press books were popular with the Moravian Society of Bibliophiles. At the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris he won a silver medal for book graphics and illustration.

Our collection includes some of this work: the cover of Jozef V. Pleva’s children’s book Malý Bobeš, volume III, a memorial poster announcing that the burial mound of General M. R. Štefánik is finished, a portrait of the Czechoslovak president T. G. Masaryk and the Love in the City title page. Browse more in our illustration art prints.

Early Death and Legacy

Galanda’s career was rising fast. He showed in Prague, Kraków and Moscow, took part in the 1937 Paris World’s Fair and in 1938 in an exhibition of Slovak art in New York. Then on 5 June 1938 he died suddenly in Bratislava, at 43. He was buried in Turčianske Teplice; in 1978 his remains were moved to the National Cemetery in Martin, the resting place of many leading Slovaks.

His influence outlived him. In 1957 a group of young Slovak painters and sculptors, including Andrej Barčík, Milan Laluha, Vladimír Kompánek and Milan Paštéka, called themselves the Mikuláš Galanda Group. They claimed the inter-war modernism of Galanda, Fulla, Miloš Bazovský and Cyprián Majerník against the official socialist realism, and were expelled from the artists’ union in 1972 for it. Today they are called “the legends of Slovak modernism”.

His birth house in Turčianske Teplice is a gallery run by the Turiec Gallery in Martin, with a permanent exhibition about him since 1991, and the town’s grammar school carries his name. In 2019 Slovak public television’s poll Najväčší Slovák (The Greatest Slovak) placed him 77th.

Famous Mikuláš Galanda Paintings

Nine works to start with, all in our collection:

In an Inn

1927, Slovak National Gallery. Drinkers at a table, built from blocks of blue, grey and brown: his first big Cubist painting.

Factory

1930, Slovak National Gallery. A yellow-topped cube, a red chimney and a looping black line on grey: his boldest step toward abstraction.

Two Women

1931, Slovak National Gallery. Two rounded pink figures by the sea, made in the years of the Private Letters.

Self-Portrait

1932, Slovak National Gallery. The painter in his round glasses and white shirt, face modelled in ochre and brown against dark green.

Green Brigands

Around 1932, Slovak National Gallery. Two outlaws of Slovak legend as quiet, huddled green shapes. Our store lists it as Bandits; the blue 1932–33 version is listed as Robbers.

Mother (Pink Madonna)

1933, Slovak National Gallery. His masterpiece: a mother and child in pink, silver and white. Our hero image.

Drunkard

1933, Slovak National Gallery. A slumped drinker beside a bottle, painted on plywood in warm browns and reds.

Clown

1934, Slovak National Gallery. A gentle, ghostly clown, part of his series of Pierrots and harlequins.

Piper

1936–37, Slovak National Gallery. A bagpiper in a black hat plays for a young woman in an embroidered blouse, one of his last large paintings. A second version is in the Orava Gallery in Dolný Kubín.

What Our Mikuláš Galanda Prints Show

Our Mikuláš Galanda collection holds 608 prints. Most reproduce his drawings and sketchbook pages, so the collection is strongest in line work, with a smaller group of colour paintings and a set of woodcuts, lithographs and book designs.

Women and mother-and-child pictures dominate, which matches his work as a whole. For a matching set, hang several line drawings of one theme together, such as lovers or mothers, in identical thin frames.

How to Decorate with Mikuláš Galanda Prints

• Living room: a colour painting such as Pink Madonna, Two Women or Green Brigands gives a calm, warm focal point over a sofa or sideboard.
• Nursery or family room: the mother-and-child drawings, Mother with Baby and Dove or Mother and Child with Poppy, are gentle and bright.
• Bedroom: the soft line drawings of lovers and women, Lovers (Song – Pastorale) or Washing Hair, suit quiet walls.
• Hallway or stairs: a row of sketchbook pages or woodcuts, such as Sunny Road and A House in the Alley, in matching black frames.
• Study or office: the modernist pieces Factory or Landscape with a Chair look surprisingly current next to modern furniture. See also our Cubism art prints.
• Frames and sizes: the oils hold up well at 18×24 inches or larger in natural oak or dark wood; the pencil and pen drawings look best smaller, with a wide white or ivory mat.

Frequently Asked Questions