Vincent Polakovič was born on November 19, 1958 in Poprad. Together with his wife
Katarína, they have two children, their son Vincent and daughter Veronika. After graduating
from law school at the Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice in 1982, he worked at the
District Prosecutor’s Office in Poprad before going into private practice from 1991 to 2003.
In the summer of 1990, he made a trip in the footsteps of Vincent van Gogh, visiting all of
the places where the famous Dutch artist lived and created. Inspired by this journey, he
opened the now legendary Yellow House of Vincent van Gogh in Poprad on September 9,
1993, where he organized exhibitions of Slovak and foreign artists. He also organized several
exhibitions of Slovak painters and sculptors abroad, primarily in the Netherlands and
Belgium.
In 1994, he met Gerard Meulensteen in the Netherlands, and in 1999 they started
construction of the first private museum of modern art in Slovakia. Located just south of
Bratislava, at the Čunovo water dam, the museum was officially opened on September 9,
2000. On the same day, the Yellow House Gallery in Poprad officially closed, but its activities
continued in the new institution, which was named the Danubiana Meulensteen Art
Museum. Later that year Vincent Polakovič was awarded the Prize of the Minister of Culture
of the Slovak Republic for the implementation of this project. He was the Danubiana’s first
director and continues to serve in this position.
During his time at the Danubiana, he has organized more than 250 exhibitions, both
independently and with the help of art collectors, selected curators, museums and domestic
and foreign cultural institutions. To date, the museum has presented the works of more than
1,000 domestic and foreign artists from more than 40 countries.
He is the author or co-author of over thirty publications on fine arts, as well as art catalogs of
the works of Karel Appel, Sam Francis, Ad Snijders, Zoltán and Madeleine Kemeny, Sikora-
Keseru, Peter Pollág, Miró and Cobra, Markus Prachensky and others.
In late 2011, together with Gerard Meulensteen, they donated the Danubiana to the Slovak
Republic and its artists, and thanks to the financial support of the Slovak Government, an
additional pavilion dedicated to the Danubiana’s permanent collection was opened on
September 9, 2014. It was selected as the Building of the Year by an international jury.
In September 2014, Heinz Fischer, the President of the Republic of Austria, awarded him the
highest Austrian state honor, the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art, for promoting
Austrian art in Slovakia.
Similarly, in 2017, Zoltán Balog, the Hungarian Minister of Human Resources, granted him
the Pro Cultura Hungarica ministerial award for his work in culture and, in particular, for the
promotion of Hungarian art in Slovakia.
In its fourteenth year, the Danubiana received the Július Satinský prize: the Bratislava
Blueberry, in the “Idea – action” category for its extraordinary contribution to culture.
On March 11, 2019, His Majesty King Willem-Alexander appointed Vincent Polakovič, Knight
of the Order of Oranje-Nassau for his extraordinary and long-term, service to society, the
state, and the royal family. This decoration was presented to him by Henk Cor van der
Kwast, the Dutch ambassador to Slovakia, on the occasion of the celebration of 25 years of
bilateral relations between Slovakia and the Netherlands. He became only the fifth Slovak to
receive this important award.
On December 8, 2023, the Tatra Gallery in Poprad awarded him the prize of Prof. Martin
Slivka, for his extraordinary contribution in the field of Slovak culture.
Currently, in addition to managing the museum, organizing exhibitions, acquiring works of
art for the museum’s permanent collection and publishing books about visual artists, he and
the board of directors of the DANUBIANA non-profit organization, are preparing further
additions to the museum, in particular, a pavilion of creative art and a Danube pavilion
dedicated to the Danube River.
Exhibitions organized by Vincent Polakovič in Slovakia and abroad (Holland, Spain, Belgium,
Hungary, Syria, among others) have been seen by more than a million visitors and admirers
of art not only from Slovakia, but around the world.