From time immemorial, the hunting genre has belonged to important disciplines of fine arts, as evidenced by the rich tradition of old masters from the Renaissance through Baroque and Classicism to the artistic trends of the 19th century.

This iconography of the forest, nature, fauna, hunting and admiration was problematised by avant-garde directions, which were not about the image and reflection of reality, but were after the creation of the previously unseen world of painting. Nevertheless, the hunting theme has not disappeared, as evidenced by the works of important Slovak artists: Csordák, Pitthordt, Kern, Schurmann, Kieselbach, Weisz-Kubínčan, Koreszka, Ondreička and most of all Šovánka.

When the well-known sculptor Ladislav Berák (1938 – 2018), a graduate of Professors Wagner (Prague) and Kostka (Bratislava), entered the art arena in the 1960s, despite fashionable abstract and new-figurative trends, he chose modelling creations of forest animals as his diploma thesis. He had not only his own hunting experience, but also an exceptional gift for the morphology, forms, dynamics and energy of nature, which he transferred to his stones and bronzes. For more than three decades, he created illustrations for professional periodicals of hunting and fishing.

Laco Berák did not have to boom into the new fashion of hunting in recent years, because the forest, hunting, wildlife and nature had long been not only experienced from his own empire but also touched by artistic shapes, whether in sculptural or painting design. On the author's works with themes of deer, wild boar, feathered animals, carnivores, chamois or fish, the vivacity of forms, the action pulsation of forest life, the perception of species rivalry, the admiration for life, which does not animate, but lives on the deepest instincts, are noticeable at first glance. Therefore, the art forms of these works are also processually activated – in sharp colours, in light contrasts, in the lively gestures of spontaneous presentation – be it watercolour, pastel, acrylic, oil or other media. We are glad to invite the visitors to the Gallery and Hotel Lomnica to the author's exhibition of selected hunting topics in the area near the Franz Josef restaurant. After all, even the Austro-Hungarian ruler liked to hunt!