Tibor Bártfay, an academic sculptor awarded with the title of National Artist was born on May 12th 1922 in Nitra, in the family of sculptor Július Bártfay. He was in contact with art from early childhood, he vividly perceived father’s work and creation in his atelier. From 1939, Bártfay studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest, in the class of professor Ferenc Sidló. Here, he was primarily under the influence of neoclassicism and robust figuration of plastic works of Ivan Meštrovič. He graduated from the Prague Academy of Fine Arts under professor Karel Pokorný in 1949. From 1950s, he lived and stayed in Bratislava, still as a follower of professor Pokorný. Bártfay’s work is diverse – besides sculpture, he worked as a painter, made collages nd authored numerous drawings. His work was shaped by multiple styles and influences ranging from cubism, through neoclassicism to surrealism. He is a sculptor of both cabinet and monumental forms. As a sculptor, he participated in several urbanistic project executions – he is, for example, the author of the statues in the monument of Slavín, in Bratislava (on which he worked as a co-author), the group sculpture in the Ľudovít Štúr square or the fountain titled Planéta mieru (the Planet of Peace) in todays Hodžovo námestie square in Bratislava. He is the author of the well-known cycle of cabinet sculptures of leading personalities of Slovak and Slavic history, which serves as evidence of his relationship to history and present. In the cycle, Bártfay’s expressed the historical basis serving for evolution of Slavs and portrayed the spirit of the Slovak nation from the times of the Great Moravian Empire until recent history – all of this through pictorial narrative and artistic metaphor. The observer can feel author’s plastic knowledge of history, the effort to express one’s own idea about the above concepts by way of sculptor’s expression, truthfully and, above all, convincingly as an artist. These works are characterised by majestic dignity and nobleness of the optical perception when looking at the characters of Great Moravian rulers. Tibor Bártfay is one of the leading Slovak artists, whose work attracted international interest. He participated in multiple exhibitions in Slovakia, Czech Republic, Germany and the US. Tibor Bártfay died on October 3rd 2015 aged 93. Sources: Kol. Aut.: Encyclopaedia Beliana, 1. vyd. Bratislava, Veda a Encyklopedický ústav SAV, 1999. 12 zv. (696 s.) Kol. Aut.: Encyklopédia Slovenka. I A – D. 2., Bratislava, Veda, 1985. s. 154.