(b Ljubljana, 20 Dec 1861; d Ljubljana, 4 Dec 1926). Slovenian painter. She studied in Vienna (1879) and Munich (1881–9), where she made friends with Käthe Kollwitz. Her works of the 1880s were painted in dark, sombre tones (e.g. Coffee Drinker, 1888; Ljubljana, N.G.). In 1891 she travelled to Paris, where she successfully exhibited at the Salon. She became a member of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and attended the private school of Henri Gervex. As a result of the influence of Fritz von Uhde and her stay in Paris her colours became lighter, and she began representing people outdoors in natural light. She spent the summer of 1892 in Barbizon and painted Children in the Grass (Ljubljana, priv. col., see 1990 exh. cat., fig. 157), her most Impressionist work. She worked from 1897 to 1905 in Sarajevo, where she was a member, with Ewald Arndt-Tschleplin, W. Leo Arndt and Maximilian Liebenwein (1869–1926), of the Sarajevo artists’ club, Sarajevo, whose main interest was the depiction of Bosnian subjects. She taught painting in Ljubljana from 1906 to 1907 and then moved to Berlin, returning to Ljubljana at the outbreak of World War I. Her oil paintings and pastels include still-lifes, genre subjects, portraits, allegories and religious scenes.

• Kobilca, Ivana
  • Slovenia, §III: Painting and graphic arts