Gallery Babka and Gallery of Naive Art in Kovacica

Jan Glozik, detail from 200 Anniversary of Slovak Artists in Kovacica, 2002

Gallery of Naive Art, Kovacica

Our visit to Kovacica (the blacksmith's town) began at the well-known Gallery of Naive Art in Vojvodina.  It opened in 1955.

In 1802, artists from Slovakia settled in Kovacica (Koh-va-chitzah).  Today, the Gallery of Naive Art displays an enormous number of paintings by various artists who were born in Serbia from these families. Jan Glozik's painting describes the arrival of these immigrants through a joyous collection of 200 lively figures and colorful clothes from that period.

Jan Glozik, Arrival of Slovak Artists, 2002
(to celebrate the 200th anniversary)

Zuzana Chalupova, Portrait and Paintings

Zuzana Chalupova (1925-2001) may be the Grandma Moses [Anna Mary Robertson Moses) and Mary Cassatt of Serbia rolled into one.  Like Grandma Moses, she was a naive artist whose fame came late in life.  For Chalupova, she was about 43 years old.  Like Mary Cassatt, she loved to paint children, but had none of her own.  

A memorial for Zuzana Chapulova in the Gallery of Naive Art

Zuzana Chapulova, Playing in the Snow, 1977

Martin Jonas (1924-1996)

Martin Jonas, Behind the Pumpkins, n.d.

Martin Jonas  helped found The Kovacica October exhibition in 1952 with fellow artists Jan Sokol, and Martin Paluska. Jonas is among my favorites.

Jan Sokol painting

Martin Paluska, Farm Scene, n.d.

Gallery Babka is situated across from the Gallery of Naive Art in the same courtyard.

Pavel Babka leads a tour in his gallery, Kovacica