Ivan Zajec

A Slovenian, Ivan Zajec was one of the most outstanding sculptors of the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. He was first trained by his father Franc Ksaver, the first academic sculptor in Slovenia. After completing his studies at the Academy of Vienna, Ivan Zajec continued his work there and in Ljubljana (previously Laibach). Since 1907 he spent several years abroad, in Paris, in the USA and in Italy. During World War I, he was interned in Sardinia. He then lived in Ljubljana again and taught at various universities beginning in the 1920s. A prolific sculptor, it is said that his works exceeded in number those of all other contemporary sculptors. He combined different styles and experiments with a variety of genres. His sculptures demonstrated certain features he had adopted during his travels to Italy, Munich, and Paris, where he became fascinated with the work of Auguste Rodin.

The entered work could be the memorial in the central Serbian city of Svilajnac for those who were killed in the Balkan War and World War I. The monument was commissioned in 1923 and inaugurated in 1926. It shows a mythical female figure holding a torch in her right hand and a laurel branch in her left, so it fits both the time of its creation and the motif. As early as the 1930s, the sculpture was to be replaced by another due to alleged anti-monarchist symbolism. However, this did not happen, but in World War II, it was melted down by Serbian nationalists and turned into hand grenades. After the war it was restored by sculptor Lojze Dolinar using Zajec’s old molds and was inaugurated in 1951.