France Mihelič

Biography

In 1939 the first public picture gallery in Ptuj opened in one of the town’s boarding schools. It was set up by a local drawing teacher, France Mihelič. There he also showed a painting of Kurent, a deity of the ancient Slovenes; it is described as central to his work and as one of the main works of Slovene painting between the two world wars.

He was born on 27 April 1907 in Virmaše near Škofja Loka. The parish register records him as Frančišek Mihelič. His father was a railway worker, and his mother was Jožefa, née Novinec. His younger brother Milan became an architect, and another brother, Stane, a teacher. From 1927 to 1931 Mihelič studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. After graduating he taught drawing, first in Kruševac and then in Ptuj. It was from Ptuj that he carried out the gallery work mentioned above. Later he bequeathed his entire body of work to the town.

During the Second World War he joined the Partisans, the resistance movement led by the Communists, and spent most of his time in Lower Carniola and White Carniola. In 1943 he took part in the Assembly of Delegates of the Slovene Nation in Kočevje. The first postwar years brought him recognition: in 1949 he received the Prešeren Award, Slovenia’s main state prize for the arts, for the paintings “Kolona v snegu” (“Column in the Snow”) and “Vaška ječa” (“The Village Jail”). From 1945 to 1970 he was a full professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana and one of its leading teachers. In 1963 he was elected a full member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and he was also an honorary member of the art academy in Florence. The University of Ljubljana made him professor emeritus in 1979.

His list of awards is long, and it shows how widely he worked. He won the Prešeren Award three times: in 1949 for paintings, in 1955 for his graphic work, and in 1965 for the sets and puppets for a production of Maeterlinck’s “The Blue Bird” at the Ljubljana Puppet Theatre. He received the Levstik Award for book illustration four times: in 1949 for Prežihov Voranc’s “Solzice” (“Lilies of the Valley”), in 1951 for Fran Levstik’s “Najdihojca”, in 1952 for France Bevk’s “Pestrna” (“Child Minder”) and in 1956 for Mira Mihelič’s “Štirje letni časi” (“The Four Seasons”). In 1954, at the 27th Venice Biennale, he received the Renato Carrain prize for graphic art. The AVNOJ Award followed in 1970, the Jakopič Award for achievement in painting in 1978, and the golden badge of honour of freedom of the Republic of Slovenia in 1996. To my mind it is telling that easel painting, printmaking, a children’s book and puppet theatre stand side by side in this list: he drew no line between them, and I have not been able to find details of his technique.

In Ptuj, on the bank of the Drava, in a rotunda dating from 1551 that once formed part of the town’s fortifications, stands the municipal art gallery named after Mihelič. He died in Ljubljana on 1 August 1998.