HIT d.d. Nova Gorica, Slovenia
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Negovan Nemec

(1947 – 1987)

Academic sculptor Negovan Nemec was one of the most talented, recognizable, and successful Slovenian sculptors. Although he died very young due to the consequences of a fall and head injury, he created a surprisingly large, diverse, multi-layered, and conceptually and technically broad sculptural oeuvre. He was born in 1947 in Bilje. He attended elementary school in Bilje and later in Miren, where he was taught art by academic painter Silvester Komel. In 1963, he successfully passed the entrance exams to the Secondary School of Design, achieving top grades in professional subjects. After passing the entrance exams, he enrolled in the Ljubljana Academy of Fine Arts in 1967, where he was taught modeling by professors Drago Tršar, Boris Kalin, and Slavko Tihec, graduating in their class. His classmates included Anton Demšar, Milomir Jevtić, Boris Prokofjev, and Vojko Štuhec. In his second year at the academy, he received the Prešeren Award for Students for his work Self-Portrait. Nemec was the first academically trained sculptor of the post-war generation from the Goriška region.

In June 1987, he had an accident at Kekec above Nova Gorica, passing away in August. A documentary film was made about Negovan Nemec.

“I draw from life, from a specific, most dramatic, unique, and unrepeatable moment for me…

Work

He created numerous busts (monuments) of notable figures, public monuments, and reliefs, and carved sculptures in Carrara marble. He also worked in graphic and industrial design, creating corporate identities, invitations, badges, plaques, envelopes, and certificates, as well as sketching and making models for tombstones. He collaborated with the furniture factory IZTOK Miren, designing furniture elements for the bedroom collection Prebujanje (Awakening).

His first solo exhibition was in 1972 at the Meblo Gallery in Nova Gorica (together with Lucijan Bratuš), and from then on, he exhibited in all prominent galleries in Slovenia and abroad, including Belgrade, Split, and beyond. He participated in numerous group exhibitions of Slovenian and Yugoslav art at home and abroad.

He was a member of the Association of Slovenian Fine Artists and the president of the Society of Northern Primorska Fine Artists. In 1984, he received the Bevk Award.

His work expressed a sense of refined, smooth, organic forms, developing through distinct phases or sculptural cycles. Initially, he focused on the motif of the shield, dedicating the majority of his works to the motif of the core, connecting with the post-war European tradition. For example, he responded to the 1976 earthquake in the Posočje region with an expressive cycle of Destructions. His most prolific cycle, however, was Living or White Stones from the 1980s, which established him as a sensitive designer of vitalist and erotic sculpture.

Maturation
1987 | 25/40 | EA | hand-colored lithograph, paper
65 x 45,5 cm | paper: 71 x 50 cm
Photo: Archive of the City Library of Kranj

No title
1987 | EA | etching, paper
19,6 x 19,2 cm | paper: 39,2 x 29 cm
Photo: Archive of the City Library of Kranj