Staying at Home with Zbirka UGM / Veno Pilon - Ponte Vecchio
Staying at Home with Zbirka UGM / Veno Pilon - Ponte Vecchio
Painter and graphic artist Veno Pilon was decidedly a citizen of the world. He studied at academies in Prague, Florence, and Vienna. In 1930, he became a permanent resident of Paris, yet his most significant works were created during the artist's short stay in his home town of Ajdovščina, in southwestern Slovenia. In Paris, he worked in photography, and as an ambassador of culture became a true icon for Slovenes arriving in the art mecca of Europe. Veno Pilon is the foremost exponent of Slovene expressionism and the New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit). His graphic art was particularly expressionistic, consisting largely of etchings employing the typical motifs of the lower social classes. In his painting, on the other hand, his art shifted, with the appearance of massive and voluminous forms, towards the New Objectivity. His paintings depict architectures and landscapes that he encountered on numerous travels, as well as still lifes and portraits. And it is the portraits that represent the pinnacle of Pilon's creative application. As critic Tomaž Brejc notes, the painter created a later modification of the view of Ponte Vecchio over the Arno River in 1929 when, while travelling through the cities of France and Italy, he made a stop in Florence. In the simple massive architecture one senses echoes of the Trecento and the Quattrocento. By the same token, however, these transformations would never have come about had it not been for the impact the contemporary New Objectivity and magic realism made on both him and on art in general.
