Lazar Licenoski Biography

Lazar Licenoski, is  one of the founders of the contemporary Macedonian painting art. He was born at the village of Galichnik in 1901. He accomplished the primary school in Galichnik and Prizren, and high school in Skopje and Tetovo.

For a period of six years (up to 1921) he worked at his father’s wood-shop. In 1919 he was elected as a secretary of the Socialist Workers Party in Tetovo. He enrolled at the Art school in Belgrade that same year. Immediately upon graduation (in 1927) he organized his first exhibition in Skopje. He specialized in wall painting at the School of Applied Arts in Paris. There, he fell under the influence of the constructivism and expressionism.

Starting from 1928 up to 1941 he lived and worked in Belgrade, regularly exhibiting at the spring and autumn exhibitions. He had independent and joint exhibitions in Skopje, Zagreb, Novi Sad, London, Sofia, Rome, Manchester and Prague.
The main feature of his art during this period was the full color expressionism with a high presence of Macedonian motives on his canvases. He was also able to express himself perfectly well through fresco paintings and mosaics. After the liberation he returned to Skopje.

He is one of the founders of the art life in Macedonia. He founded the Art Gallery, the Office of Cultural and Historic Monuments, as well as the Art School were he taught until his death. Member of the Association of the Painting Artists of Macedonia (DLUM) and its first President, serving for one term. He took part at all of the larger events organized by this association.

His work in the field of art is rich and various. The themes of his canvases, highly loved by the public and the critics, are the rich colors of the Macedonian land, the poppy fields, the ripe flower fields, the shores of the Ohrid Lake etc. In 1963 he was elected as a corresponding member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. He died in 1964 in Skopje.

Lazar Licenoski Gallery