Albin Brunovsky: Slovakia's Surrealist Printmaker

Here's a curious image. No, wait, here's another one.

And another....
What the heck is this printmaker up to? Most everyone feels the same after seeing the work of Albin Brunovsky, one of Slovakia's most celebrated printmakers. His work combines a lot of information in minute detail, obsessively so, and he opens up our eyes to a unseen world within our universe. The complexity of his figures, mostly female. show his love of the feminine physique. Curvy, bouyant, yet serene.

Brunovsky creates a universe of oddly-shaped and obviously heavily-laden 'stuff' (for lack of a better phrase) on top of women's heads. They carefully carry their burdens upon their delicate necks as they effortlessly move about the composition, smiling at us as they walk by.

One can see his interest in the quirks of Northern Renaissance illuminations and paintings of Peter Bruegel. His play on perspective and scale is amusing and his elaborately developed composition details and interaction of characters borders on the erotic and just plain kooky.

Biography
Albín Brunovský has been widely considered one of the greatest Slovak painters of the 20th century. Born in 1935, in Zohor, Czechoslovakia, he studied art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava. The school was well known for its high degree of artistic and technical instruction in the graphic arts. Brunovský became a lecturer, and then a professor of art at that same school from 1966 to 1990. He later went on to establish his own engraving school.

Brunovský's work often followed suit with the ideas of Modern Art, and his illustrations were often used in children's books; many of which were done in watercolor. Brunovský was also the designer of the last series of Czechoslovak banknotes before the split between the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

His artwork was certainly influenced by poetry and literature. He explored the ideas expressed in surrealism—and the subconscious. with wild landscapes and seascapes, bare-breasted women and odd little creatures floating in the air. Brunovsky lets us dream of other places and other worlds . His linear qualities were magnificent, and his sensibility for the fantastic enduring.
Brunovsky influenced many artists and hopefully those of us who have not see this work before will re-examine and take inspiration from his work.