Milestones:

Vladimir Popovic was born in 1939 as the eldest son into a family of shopkeepers in Eastern Slovakia. His early childhood had the shadow of WWII cast over it, followed by the rebuilding period of the Stalinist era communism of the early fifties.

Two younger brothers arrived by the time the war was over, and the family bought a house in the regional town of Kezmarok and settled there. Vladimir's childhood in Kezmarok, being at the foothills of the High Tatra mountains, strongly reverberates throughout the artist's work. Even if rarely through landscapes, but more often through colours of grey stone and yellow bloom of rape, angular shapes of rocks, patterns of fields and winding serpents of roads and alleys of trees.

Vladimir learned to play violin and started to sketch and paint, particularly when forced to convalesce by a touch of tuberculosis in 1952. By the time he was 16 he knew that he wanted to go to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, to study at the Arts and Crafts Institute.

Boarding at the Institute he gets sucked into the artistic and bohemian way of life just emerging in the city, and in 1959 is successful in entering the Academy of Fine Arts. The sixties see Vladimir shine as one of the most talented students producing cutting edge and innovative work as part of the pan-European artistic avant-garde. Vladimir gets married to a fellow artist, Katarina Sujanova, and has a son.

The loosening of the political atmosphere in Slovakia which nurtured the growth and freedom of arts came to an end in August 1968 when the Soviet Army invaded and occupied the country, and replaced the government. A mostly dark period in Vladimir's creative output follows, with private works of great emotional impact as well as public statements including a statue of the giant Catapult (1970) as a symbol of the struggle between the political David and Goliath - Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia.

Vladimir slowly finds his way and splits his creative output between monumental works for public buildings approved by the regime and private production in his studio. However, he refuses to compromise and become acquiescent and as such lives on the fringe of the officially sanctioned cultural life in the country. However, he uses every opportunity to travel abroad and obtains inspiration from his visits to Yugoslavia, Greece, France, Germany, Japan and Cuba.

In 1975 he suffers serious injuries in a car accident, it takes more than a year before he can walk again unaided. He has his second child, a daughter, in 1977.
With the advent of the eighties, the rot and corruption of the regime becomes unbearable but the end of it is still unthinkable. This is the time of the bleakest, monochromatic production by Vladimir, taking another steep dive when his son defects to the UK in 1984.

The Velvet Revolution of 1989 turns everything upside down and Vladimir is shortly appointed as part of a new lecturing team at the Academy of Fine Arts. Since then he had been appointed a full professor, and had his works exhibited and purchased by many national and international institutions. He currently lives in Bratislava with his wife, and continues to inspire and encourage new generations of artists at the Academy.