World Fine Art Professionals and their Key-Pieces, 485 - Martin Jonáš

World Fine Art Professionals and their Key-Pieces, 485 – Martin Jonáš
It all started when Martin Jonas was a little boy. He was hiding under the big table. He heard his parents talking about hard work, bad harvests and being hungry. Jonas: “But I also learned about the meaning of happiness. It was my school, there under the table. I still remember those heavy hand palms at rest hanging under the table. I can still see them and I still paint them.”

Martin Jonas was born on May 9, 1924 in Kovačica in the province of Vojvodina, Serbia. He studied under the table and attended primary school. He continued to live and work there, mainly as a farmer and artist. He began painting at the age of twenty-one and his first canvas was shown at an exhibition in Kovačica. He was a leading figure of the insit enclave of Kovačica and one of the founders of the Insit Art Gallery in Kovačica.

Big hands and feet
In 1953, together with Sokol, he painted one of the first paintings of naive art in Kovačica. His paintings show the hard work of farmers. The big hands and feet of those farmers underline it. It made him recognizable and unique. He was quickly recognized in the world of naive art. He made drawings, linocuts, woodcuts and paintings, in oil. He mainly painted genre art, but in his rich work you can also find portraits, panoramas, landscapes, animal motifs and figures. He is one of the most famous naive painters from Eastern Europe.

Jonáš created with his artistic philosophy and the power of his specific, colorful and direct imagination a unique style, even outside the intuitive / outsider art. The main motifs of his paintings are people, sitting with large working hands, walking with heavy legs and a small, grotesquely depicted head, in the decor of Slovak houses and fields. It is Jonáš’s unique presentation of the essence of life. A characteristic chronicle of the hard work of peasant life, illustrated by the painter’s own life experiences.

Numerous exhibitions
He continued his rich and active artistic work throughout his life and participated in more than 450 solo and group exhibitions. He was honored with high international art prizes and was invited by several European cities. Together with Salvador Dalí and Renato Gattuso, he won a gold medal in 1978 at a major international exhibition in Italy.

The walls of the room where he painted were covered with photographs, medals and diplomas.

On the shelves were not only his favourite books and old magazines related to the history of the Slovak enclave of Vojvodina, but also professional literature, folders with extensive correspondence, magazines and newspapers from all over the world with reports about the artist – a respectable archive of articles and photographs. Of course, there were also paintings.

Even today, many art lovers come to Jonáš’s house to see the impressive collection. The collection of Jonáš’s paintings in the Gallery of Naïve Art (Galerija Naivne Umetnosti) in Kovačica is also noteworthy.

“I leave out everything that is not essential”
Martin Jonáš: “Of course, without any detours or details, I want to say with my works that two and two is four. That is what life, work, love and death, joy and pain look like… I use a shortcut, I leave out everything that is not essential. The canvas or the drawing is an artistic presentation that in all its simplicity depicts even the most complex events and situations.”

Martin Jonáš died on 31 January 1996 in Kovačica, where he is also buried at the local cemetery. In the same year, a memorial plaque was unveiled at his home with the help of Matica Slovakska.
Thanks to Kees van Teeffelen and Sylvia Kohlmann who discovered this painter during their holiday in Slovakia in 2024.

 

https://www.visitbratislava.com/events/martin-jonas-maliar-z-belaseho-domu/
https://naivnaumetnost.com/en/
https://inzaken.eu/2024/07/31/martin-jonas-zat-het-liefst-onder-de-tafel/