Zvest Apollonio

Biography

In 1955 his school in Koper sent Zvest Apollonio to Paris as a prize. French became his favourite foreign language, although at home he spoke Italian with his father and Slovenian with his mother.

He was born on 15 May 1935 in Bertoki, near Koper (Capodistria in Italian), and at birth he was named Fedele. His father was Italian and his mother Slovenian, so he was bilingual from childhood. At that time the area belonged to the Kingdom of Italy. After the Second World War it became part of Zone B of the Free Territory of Trieste, and in 1954 it was officially annexed to Yugoslavia, and Apollonio became a Yugoslav citizen.

While still a schoolboy and a student he began winning prizes: in 1959, aged twenty-four, he won first prize at a Yugoslav showcase of young people’s creative work in Belgrade. Later he said that this award meant more to him than any other. In 1960 he graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana. He then took a specialist course in painting under Gabrijel Stupica and completed it in 1964.

From 1973 to 1989 Apollonio was a professor of printmaking at the same academy. For a time he headed the printmaking department, and for four years he was associate dean. In the 1960s and 1970s printmaking absorbed him most. In 1973 he received a gold medal in Pompeii, and in 1976 a special critics’ prize at the European Print Biennial in Mulhouse. From the 1980s painting took him over almost entirely. His range of work was wide: painting, printmaking, sculpture, drawing, illustration, design, mosaics, stage design and ceramics. I would not look for a school here: his painting belongs to no particular movement. He painted Istria and the Mediterranean in bright, hot colours, and in his later years arrived at a sunlit sensuality with classical traits. He was drawn to spectacle, which is why he also worked as a stage designer.

The Jakopič Award, the highest award for the arts in Slovenia, came to him in 1984. He also received the Prešeren Fund Award. In 2003 he was given the Istrian Arts Award for his contribution to preserving and studying the cultural identity of Istria, and in 2005 the Kocjančič Award, presented by the municipalities of Piran, Izola and Koper. The numbers of his exhibitions and awards are given differently: solo shows from over forty to more than a hundred, group shows from dozens to over three hundred, awards more than twenty or thirty. In March 2007 his work was shown in Gorizia in the exhibition “Contemporary Slovenian Art 1945–2000”, the fullest exhibition of Slovenian painting and sculpture ever held in Italy. His work is in the Moderna galerija in Ljubljana.

For the last two decades of his life he lived and worked in Portorož or in Bertoki, not far from his birthplace; the exact place is given differently. He died in Bertoki on 25 March 2009.