Oton Župančič (1878–1949) was a dramatist, essayist and translator, yet his main vocation, as reflected by his personality traits and body of work, was that of a poet. A less known fact about his creative expression is that he often exchanged the medium of the written word for drawing. This exhibition presents 158 artworks from seven sketchbooks and folders with individual drawings. Due to their bound form, the sketchbook drawings can only be exhibited as reproductions, while the drawings preserved on individual sheets can be viewed in their original form, including most of the drawings that the City Museum of Ljubljana received from the poet’s heirs as part of Župančič’s Memorial Collection. The National and University Library also houses a few drawings that mostly accompany his writings.

To Župančič, drawing was a secondary accompaniment, an amateur activity. His visual artworks would by any common standards likely slip under the radar of art historians, although his motifs were in line with his contemporaries, the Slovene Impressionists, especially in attributing his image of the pear tree with spiritual symbolism. It is why Župančič’s art is invaluable in terms of gaining a comprehensive understanding of his spiritual image. His fine art is often distinguished by the same impulses we encounter in his poetry.

These drawings testify that he saw visual expression as an essential internal need, just as compulsory to him as writing. The fact that his artwork meant so much to him speaks volumes about why he preserved them and even published one of them in a symbolically very exposed place—in the second volume of his selected works titled The Works of Oton Župančič from 1936.

OTON ŽUPANČIČ: RISBE »Pinxi me ergo sum – « / »Naslikal sem se, torej sem.«

Katalog ob razstavi 158 risb Otona Župančiča, ki kažejo, da je bilo za enega naših največjih poetov vizualno izražanje enako pomembna notranja nuja kot pisanje.