Bratislava 2 – Day 16

A moderate amount of rain was falling when I opened the curtains this morning, and was forecast to continue for the whole day. I looked at my list of things to do here, and at my guidebook, and decided to go to Galéria Nedbalka. It didn’t open until 1 PM so I had relaxing morning in the room. I decided to take the tram because it was still raining when it was time to leave.

I was a little bit early, so I stopped into the post office that was built between 1908 and 1912. The ceiling is a gentle arch of glass with floral motifs. It was quite impressive for a post office, and still operates as such.

These are the front and back views of the outside of the post office.

I passed the Primate’s Palace and a small part of the Christmas market on the way to the gallery. The market is open, but not nearly as busy during the day.

The gallery is spread across five floors surrounding a circular atrium. I enjoyed the architecture of the building as much as the art collection.

I started on the fourth floor, as advised by the receptionist, where are the oldest art starting from about 1900, was displayed.

The elevator entrances on each floor were covered with a copy of art from their collection. I appreciated the fact that the stairs were open and bright and right next to the elevator, and used them.

This piece is entitled Adam and Eve, and was painted by Anton Jasusch in 1925. I thought their smiles were engaging.

This is a view of the third floor.

This is a view looking up from the second floor.

I found the colour appealing in this oil painted in 1965 by Milan Laluha, entitled Three Men.

Ladislav Guderna was a surrealist, Czechoslovakian painter, who emigrated to Canada after the Prague spring. His work seemed familiar to me, and I thought perhaps I had seen it in the National Gallery when I was in Ottawa in the summer, but if I did, I didn’t take a picture of it.

The first floor gallery was taken up entirely by an exhibition by Fero Lipták. All of the work presented was very recognizably by the same artist. This large piece had so much detail in it that I took four detail images. It is called passengers.

The artist statement says: “Through the figures, looking at the world from a perspective of an innocent child, the artist points out, with kind humour and gentle satire, various social and individual problems.” These are some other pieces of his work, which were in the collection.

There is an Art Café on the second floor and a coffee, tea, or hot chocolate was included in the admission. I chose a hot chocolate, and was surprised to find it was one like we had at the Maximillian Café on Sunday morning a couple weeks ago. More like fondue than hot chocolate. It was delicious. They had a large bookshelf full of art books, and I enjoyed looking through a couple about artists whose work I saw exhibited at Danubiana.

It was still raining when I finished at the café at the gallery so I took the tram back to the hotel. This was the view from the room just before 4 o’clock.

Milan, who loaned me his bike while I was here, took us out to dinner tonight. Despite the weather, the restaurant was completely full.

After dinner, we walked across the street to the little market in front of the Apollo Hotel, and the guys had some Christmas punch. Then we had a 20 minute walk back to the hotel.