Between Painting and Illustration
What made Klimo stand out in the field of illustration?
It was his original approach to illustrating a children’s book. He chose collage a technique that is not new – modern art has been working with it since Cubism, but one that has been used very rarely in our country. From the very beginning, he aimed for a simplified artistic form that did not slavishly follow the depiction of details.
He used roughly, irregularly cut and torn paper, from which he composed forms only in approximate outlines. Humorous and grotesque interpretation, such as in the way in which he highlighted eyes and limbs, also played a role here. He gave greater importance to color, letting color spots dissolve on the paper, thus achieving a rich layering. The aspect of color most closely connects illustrations with free creation. In his paintings, he also used the method of applying paint to an unprimed canvas covered with paper, which dissolves the paint.
This exhibition commemorates Alojz Klimo’s extraordinary position in Slovak modern art, including his sometimes underappreciated illustrations of children’s books.
Eva Trojanová
Alojz Klimo (1922 – 2000)
Klimo studied at the Department of Drawing and Painting of the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava from 1941 to 1945, and immediately afterwards until 1948 at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague. He was not only an illustrator, in fact, we are more familiar with his works in the abstract, geometric-constructive line. He was also active in the field of graphics, monumental work and the creation of spatial objects and toys. He illustrated almost sixty books and illustrated books for children, such as Čačky hračky by Kristy Bendová, Kráľ času by Božena Němcová, and Ohňostroj pre deduška by Jaroslava Blažková, a book of folk Beliže mi, beli and Generál Guľôčka by Jozef Pavlovič. He was not afraid to transfer abstraction, geometric constructions, various hints/signs and subtexts, and references to folk art into his illustrations. He often used a colored collage technique which creates a sense of mass in his pictures and adds perspective to the volume. His daughter Tamara Kolenčíková said this about his collages: "He created it with a kind of knife, but it was different from today's cutters; it was crooked, which kept it vivid at the edges."
