Idrija, Memorial to Nikolaj Pirnat

Pirnat Niko, sculptor, painter and graphic artist, partisan and camp member

Born on 10th December 1903 in Idrija, died 9th January 1948 in Ljubljana. He studied at the gymnasium in Kranj and at the real school in Idrija (matura). He studied for four and a half years at the art academy in Zagreb, where he also completed his special sculpture school under I. Meštrović in 1925; he spent one year in Paris to perfect his skills. Until the second war, he lived and worked as a draughtsman in the editorial office of "Jutra" in Ljubljana. During the occupation, he was interned in Gonars, Italy, in 1942. After the fall of Italy in 1943, he joined the partisans and led the department for artistic propaganda at the Main Staff. He was popular under the name of Captain Kopjejkin and Miklavž Breugnon. He attained the rank of captain; he was awarded the Order of Brotherhood and Unity and the Order for Merit to the Nation. After the liberation of Belgrade, he was a political illustrator for "Borba"; in 1946 he was appointed professor of drawing at the art academy in Ljubljana. Artistically, he was active as a sculptor, especially as a portraitist, as a painter, draughtsman and graphic artist, as well as a feuilletonist and as a writer of anecdotal, polemical, satirical and political poetry. Pirnat's artistic work. Sculpture: portraits: A. Aškerc, Danilo, I. Cankar, J. Jurčič, M. Gorki, V. Radauš, N. Omerza etc. Monuments: St. John the Baptist on the Trnovski Bridge in Ljubljana, King Matjaž on Peca; Idrijski Rudar. Oil paintings: Self-portrait, Portrait of his wife and Dr. Cerkvene wall paintings together with Mežan in the parish church in Tržič. Drawings in "Jutra", "Našem rodu", "Mladem Jutru", "Borbi" and others; illustrative, political, caricature and satirical. Many of his own caricatures. Main illustrative work: "Don Quixote", Župančič's "Ciciban", Finžgar's "Gospod Hudournik", Torkar's "Blazni Kronos" (1940 confiscated); the cycle of drawings "Dekla Ančka". As a draughtsman with pen and charcoal and as a graphic artist in linocut, he became known in the liberation struggle as a chronicler of experiences, especially in 1944 with the maps "Naša borba" and "Domovi, ječe, gozdovi". N. P. is for H. Smrekar the most important satirist and caricaturist, whose work has a documentary significance for the turbulent conditions between the two wars and during the liberation struggle. He exhibited in Paris, several times in Ljubljana, Zagreb, Belgrade and others – Portraits: Tovariš IV., no. 3, p. 59 (photo); same as drawn Self-portrait with mirror; Slov. Poročevalec 1948, no. 13 (oil self-portrait); Lj. pravica 1948, no. 21 drawn Self-portrait and the whole series of other self-portraits and self-caricatures. – Note: Introduction to the catalog of the exhibition of modern Slovene shaping art in Ptuj 9–25 March 1941; Necrology SPor 1948, no. 11; Fr. Mihelič, N. P. – artist and fighter SPor 1948, no. 13 (with photo); M. Bor, Nikolajeva's return same as; I. Torkar, Dear N. P. in memory (poem); K. B., N. P. – our youth, SPor 1948, no. 12; Fr. Uršič, Sculptor and graphic artist N. P., Lj. pravica 1948, no. 21 (with picture); M. Bor, Lost Nikolajev's illustrations, same as; Tovariš IV., no. 3, p. 59 (with picture). Stl.

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