Croatian painter Alfred Pal

The life story of Alfred Pal (1920-2101) was always a mixture of great tragedies and a will for life, which is immortalised by the power of achievement of this artistic oeuvre.  The very end of the great Croatian artist is in key with the artist’s life, which was full of rises and falls.  As a young man of 20, a would-be student of architecture, in the Holocaust he lost all the members of his family.   Having suffered his first internment in camps in the occupied territory (Kraljevica and Rab), in 1943 he joined the Partisans. An excellent draughtsman, he had a leading role in the illustration of printed matter and brochures for the purpose of promoting combatant literacy.  On his return to Zagreb, he was not long to enjoy the fruits of his successful management of Illustrirani Vjesnik and Kerempuh.  From 1949 to 1953 he had his second spell in a concentration camp, on Goli otok.  After that came a period in which, because of discrimination, he worked under a pseudonym, until 1961, when he had his first individual exhibition, and his life and creative work once again took an upward path.  Exceptionally active in the art of the print, in design, book design and illustration, he dedicated himself to painting in cycles, within the four walls of his studio. Yet this does not mean that his painting oeuvre is modest in its extent.  Until a traffic accident that led to his death in 2010, Alfred Pal created a series of remarkable works that tell of an exceptional artistry and an unrepeatable painting career dedicated to the fight for human liberty and the victory of creation over destruction.(www.moderna-galerija)