Viera Kraicová (1920 – 2012) – Her illustrations are perhaps less well-known than her paintings, but that doesn’t take away from the significance and power of this field of her work. She devoted herself to illustration, one might say, systematically and for a long time, from the mid-1950s to the early 1980s, with a particular focus on children’s books. Although not formally trained in this area of she made up for it with self-study and the search for her own ways of expression. She approached illustrations honestly and developed a characteristic and truly modern style in terms of content and the purpose of the book, which Fedor Kriška referred to as a “metamorphosis.” Her work as an illustrator was highly rated, and her illustrations of children’s book in particular demonstrate the basic principles of her work in crystalline form, but transformed through the specific filter of the genre. Kraicová’s illustrations represented more than just an epic, visually easy-to-understand accompaniment to a literary text. Although she respected the rules of illustrations intended for children and was close to their emotional world, her work was artistically autonomous in its understanding. She based it on the power of color expression or a striking black-and-white scale complemented by a color accent. It was characterized by a simplified form abbreviation and the dramatic power of a somewhat primitivizing, childlike or lyrical line. She illustrated Božena Němcová’s Babička (Grandma, 1965, published in four editions), Mária Rázusová-Martáková’s Sedmikráska (Daisy, 1966), Karel Jaromír Erben‘s Zlatovláska (Goldilocks, 1968), Ovid’s Premeny (Metamorphoses, 1969), a selection of folk ballads Išlo dievča po vodu (The Girl Went to Fetch the Water, 1969), and Ľudmila Podjavorinská’s Čakanka (1972), among others. Although the artist’s best illustrations have found their way into state and public collections, her estate contains many preliminary sketches and variations of her work.
1920 – born on July 5th in Modra
1940 – 1944 – studied at the Department of Drawing and Painting at the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava
1945 – 1950 – studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague
1952 – 1955 – was an assistant to Professor Ján Želibský at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava
1955 – began working as a freelancer
1966 – moved from Modra to Bratislava, where she built a studio in the artist colony on Drotárská cesta
1966, 1967, 1968, 1975, 1980 – received honorable mentions and prizes for her illustrations in the Most Beautiful Book of Czechoslovakia competition
1968 – received the Cyprián Majerník Award
1987 – received the Ľudovít Fulla Award for her many years of illustration work for children
1996 – had a group exhibition at the Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava
2012 – died on April 29th in Bratislava
