Jože Tisnikar

1928 Born as the first of nine children to Slavko Tisnikar, worker, and Margareta, housewife.
1947 After the death of his father he takes a job in a paper factory, helping his mother to support his younger brothers and sisters.
1948 Army service and training as a male nurse.
1951 Employed in the Slovenj Gradec hospital. Supported by Dr. Stane Strnad.
1954 Dr. Strnad introduces him to the academic painter Karel Pečko, who becomes his mentor.
1955 Paints his first oil painting with the motif of prosection room, entitled Autopsy.
1958 His first personal exhibition in Ljubljana at the occasion of the Congress of Surgeons of Slovenia.
1959 Marries Maria Stepišnik.
1963 Becomes a member of the Union of Slovene Fine Artists, and has the first exhibition abroad in the Künstlerhaus gallery in Vienna.
1970 Awarded the Prešeren Fund Award for his painting exhibitions in 1969.
1974 Publication of the first monograph by Založba Obzorja in Maribor.
1978 Revija Beograd publishes a book by Nebojša Tomašević, The World of the Enliven Dead. The book and the film introduce Tisnikar to the international public.
Bestowed the Berneker Distinction.
1983 Retired as invalid after thirty-five years of active work.
Exhibition in New York; audience with the UN Secretary General, Perez de Cuellar.
1986 Publication of the monograph by Mladinska Knjiga in Ljubljana.
Fine art design for the puppet production The Dead Man Comes For His Beloved by Svetlana Makarovič.
1988 Awarded the Berneker Award.
1989 Set design sketches for The Singer, a production by the Shakespeare Theatre from London.
1990 Performs in the Brigades of Beauty theatre production, directed by Vlado Repnik, and premiered in Cankarjev Dom in Ljubljana, February 1990. He presents himself – thus, the »intrusion of the real«.
1995 Alojz Ovsenik from Kranj establishes a permanent collection of Tisnikar’s works.
1996 Publication of the monograph Drawings by EWO (the Arkade series) in Ljubljana.
1997 Participates at the European Month of Culture in Ljubljana with an exhibition in the Krka gallery.
Publication of The Raven, a book by Dane Zajc & Jože Tisnikar (Ljubljana: Edina).
Titled the honorary citizen of the City Commune of Slovenj Gradec, and the Commune of Mislinja.
1998 Retrospective exhibition in the Art Gallery in Slovenj Gradec.

From 1958 to date he had over a hundred personal exhibitions at home and abroad, and participated in countless group exhibitions.

The Art Gallery Slovenj Gradec holds a collection of Tisnikar’s works, but private collector Alojz Ovsenik from Kranj owns the largest collection. The Gorenje Corporation from Velenje keeps another important collection.

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»In Tisnikar, drawing represents an authentic way of life, and fortunately he is made up of genuine artistic substance; his distressed perception inherently evoked an authentic artistic means of expression, probably from the very moment he got hold of paper instead of gloves and a scalpel and tried, filled as he was with pain, to draw the face of his dead friend…«
Milček Komelj
Excerpt from: Tisnikar – Drawings, Ljubljana: EWO – the Arcade Series, 1996.