France Kralj (1895-1960), painter, graphic artist and sculpturor, is the Slovene leader in expressionism and later new reality. In 1919 he finished studying sculpture at the Vienna Academy and in the following two years of painting he perfected his work at the Prague Academy. For a number of years he was a professor at the Secondary Technical School in Ljubljana and was active in various fine art circles. In 1933 he published his art autobiography My Path. In 1937 at the world exhibition in Paris he was awarded for his sculpture Stallion.

France Kralj's permanent collection consists of 252 pieces of artwork, pictures, drawings, graphic art and plastics. The collection is an overview of his creations. The exhibited collection signifies the individual artist's development of style, from works of expressionalistic character, through a new reality style to almost and above all abstract monotypes, with which he achieved a renewed climax in his creations. Farm life is the prevailing motif (Peasant Woman, Sowers), to animal forms (Cow with Calve, Men with Horses), landscapes and religious motifs (Magdelena), nudes and portraits. Devotion to the creation of genre motifs and untameable energy which shines from his creations is the artist's ode to life and nature. The permanent exhibition has been on view since 1983.

Magdalena, 1921,
oil on juta