Drago Prelog

Biography

Drago Julius Prelog (born November 4, 1939 in Celje, Yugoslavia, † March 11, 2020 in Vienna) was a Slovenian-Austrian painter and graphic artist. He lived and worked in Vienna.

Karl Julius Prelog grew up in Upper Styria. Compulsory school attendance in Markt Haus and Schladming. From 1954 to 1958 Drago Prelog attended the Graz School of Decorative Arts with Otto Brunner. Since 1958 he was called Drago Julius Prelog. From 1958 to 1962 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna with Albert Paris Gütersloh. In 1960 he did his first scriptural work. In 1967, Drago Julius Prelog received the Theodor Körner Foundation's promotional award and in 1969 the Neue Galerie Graz prize.

From 1969 to 1979 he was a lecturer in painting at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. From 1974 to 1997 he also lectured on "writing and typeface design" at the academy. 1968 participation in the Venice Biennale. This was followed by the art award of the State of Styria and in 1972 a large retrospective in the Landesmuseum Joanneum (now the Universalmuseum Joanneum). On May 18, 1977 Prelog painted his first circulation picture. In 1982 he exhibited a large retrospective of his work at the Künstlerhaus Salzburg. Since then, several hundred exhibitions in Germany and abroad have followed.

Prelog became known for a self-developed design technique, the so-called "prelography". Prelography is a duplication technique that can be used primarily in the printing sector. With the help of perforated stencils, over which rigid acrylic paint is drawn with long spatulas, a haptic, scale-like pattern is created. The prelography can be combined well with other printing techniques, such as lithography, offset, etching, chine collé, wood-linocut, screen printing (also a stencil technique).