Regional Gallery in Prešov was founded in 1956. It belongs to the oldest regional galleries in Slovakia. It started its exhibition activity in 1957. Originally it was located in the building of the former Evangelical College (a national cultural monument) in the northern part of the main square. In 1981 it acquired two listed buildings, former burgher houses (originally Gothic with Renaissance and Baroque reconstructions) in the town conservation area, reconstructed for the needs of the gallery, in the mid-1980s it acquired another building in the neighbourhood (Hlavná 49), which after reconstruction (2015 - 2020) houses the permanent exhibition „Sacred Art of the 15th - 19th centuries“.
The gallery built its collection from the ground up through its own research and collection, mainly through purchases. At present, it owns more than 4,500 paintings, drawings, sculptures and prints from the 15th to the 20th century. It focuses primarily on northeastern Slovakia, but it also seeks out, acquires and professionally processes the work of artists from all over eastern Slovakia, important representatives of modern Slovak art and personalities associated with the region. Among the collection of older art there are remarkable collections of icons from the 16th-18th centuries (the most precious is a 16th century tempera on wood - St. Michael the Archangel), portraits from the 18th-19th centuries, portraits from the 18th-19th centuries and portraits from the 19th century. century (including a collection of works by the Central European portraitist Ján Rombauer) and a collection of works by Prešov painters from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and from the first half of the 20th century (Max Kurth, Ernest Rákoši, Július Törok, Jozef Bendík). The collection of art from the second half of the 20th century is particularly rich. The collection is also systematically supplemented with works by contemporary artists.
The gallery offers visitors changing exhibitions, important collections of old and contemporary art, and a permanent exhibition. It prepares and implements lectures, meetings and talks with authors, work with children, workshops and art education classes, studio visits, concerts, club activities, counselling, consultations and methodological assistance in the field of fine arts, full-time study in the archive, cooperates with art schools, universities, other entities operating in the field of culture. In the context of contemporary art and the change of approach in established and non-established culture, which mainly in our domestic conditions had a non-participatory character, it seeks to link these entities in the penetration and interpretation of contemporary art, as well as in the mapping of the regional and supra-regional scene through its active participation.
The gallery has been founded in 2002 Prešov self-governing region.
Source: krajskagaleria.sk
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