Ferdo Mayer / An Artist Dedicated to Colour

Ferdo Mayer / An Artist Dedicated to Colour
UGM Kabinet, Strossmayerjeva ulica 6
25 January–27 February 2025
opening: Saturday, 25 January 2025, 11:00
curator: Saša Bučan, curator at the Gallery Miha Maleš
In partnership with the Kamnik Intermunicipal Museum – Gallery Miha Maleš and Mayer family, we showcase a selection of paintings by Ferdo Mayer (1927–1994), a painter who was born in Maribor and lived there for his first 27 years. He first displayed his artwork in his hometown in 1941 while still a high school student. He had a solo exhibition there in 1954. Additionally, he relocated to Kamnik for work in this year. A selection of his extensive body of work is on display in this exhibition
Ferdo Mayer, a painter and art teacher, passed away 30 years ago last year. He was born in Maribor on March 8, 1927. Following primary school, he attended a Graz art school. He was among the first students to enrol in Ljubljana's newly established Academy of Figurative Arts in 1946. He learnt from a number of renowned teachers and painters, including Gojmir Anton Kos (painting), Božidar Jakac (printing), and France Mihelič (drawing), to mention a few. After finishing his studies (1950), he pursued a special postgraduate study in painting with Gojmir Anton Kos. Mayer began teaching drawing at the grammar school in Maribor, and in 1954 he relocated to Kamnik, where he and his wife lived at Zaprice Castle before moving to a new house near the Titan factory. Regular employment prompted the artist to move to Kamnik and begin teaching at the Fran Albrecht Primary School. He taught art classes until 1978, when he decided to focus solely on his artistic career and became a freelance artist.
He was awarded two Moša Pijade Scholarships for his work in visual arts, allowing him to travel for educational purposes. He went to Paris with his first scholarship. All of the modern art novelties he saw there, which he could follow in various galleries, left a lasting influence on the young artist. This was also evident in his artistic work, which began to shift and seek challenges, primarily in the abstract realm. Receiving a second scholarship led him back abroad, this time to Sweden in northern Europe. This was followed by visits to Germany, Austria, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Italy.
Ferdo Mayer managed to devote his life to young people while also constantly researching painting and developing his own distinctive artistic language, which alternated between figure and abstract narrative. He found inspiration for both realistic and symbolic compositions in the real world, and he frequently tailored his painting technique to the character of the motif. The movement between abstract art language and concrete visual narrative, as well as the search for their synthesis, is most obvious throughout the mature creative era. Ferdo Mayer's paintings have various influences from contemporary events, but whether figural or abstract, we see a real commitment towards what is painted.
Before moving from Kamnik to Lom pod Storžičem, he left works in Kamnik that were commissioned by the Kamnik industry giants—Eta, Svilanit, and Utok, the last two of which are now part of the collection of the Kamnik Intermunicipal Museum. Because of his modesty and focus on art itself, he remained an artist on the verge, putting his inner perspective in the spotlight and expressing it mostly through colour.
"... Colour is more important to me than composition. Colour should express what I see, feel, and want. Let it not only define the external, but also emotion, thought, craving, joy and sadness, evil and good. These are the distinct colours of various characters. Every person has their distinct colours, which may define them more than anything else."
He showed his work in solo and group exhibitions at home and abroad, and he enjoyed participating in art colonies. In 1987, he moved from Kamnik to Lom pod Storžičem, where he passed away far too soon.