Nikola Martinoski (Macedonian: Никола Мартиноски), sometimes mentioned as Nikola Martinovski (August 18, 1903 - February 7, 1973) was a Macedonian painter with a rare gift for art.[1]
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He was born in Kuruşova (present-day Kruševo) in 1903, and died in 1973 in Skopje. He grew an interest for painting from his early years. He attended art classes in the workshop of icon painter Dimitar Andonov-Papradinski in Skopje. He was also constantly changing location. In 1920 he was already living in Bucharest, Romania where he attended the Academy of Fine Arts and graduated in 1927.
He spent a period of two years (1927–1928) in Paris in the Académie de la Grande Chaumière (famous by former students Amedeo Modigliani and Boris Anrep) and the Académie Ranson, having artists like polish painter Moise Kisling and Roger Bissiere as mentors. This period would affect his way of life and further style of painting.
He came back to Skopje with the looks of a Parisian gentleman and intellectual with avant-garde ideas of art. He developed a very specific expressionistic style and he started dealing with social themes rather than doing mostly portraits. He was a member of the Belgrade group Oblik. His first individual exhibition happened in 1929 in Skopje, and he continued exhibiting in Belgrade, Zagreb, Paris etc. He continued drawing, painting and exhibiting, but there is also a period when he did quite a few wall paintings. Later in his life he established the Art Gallery of Skopje and won a lot of prizes.
He gave 62 paintings as a gift to his home town Kruševo. He died at the age of 69. His house in Kruševo is made into an Art Gallery where a small number of artworks are exhibited.
In 2003, Skopje Art Gallery completed the project of 100 years from Martinovki's birth. What struck the community, was that the exhibition consisted of Martinovski's paintings never shown publicly before. Nikola Martinovski left these 116 paintings in an old box to his family. The audience of the exhibition was surprised to find a new unexplored side of Martinovski never before seen or discussed.