International artist from Lancaster celebrates new exhibition and book

The work of a Lancaster artist is now on show at an art gallery on the shores of Lake Windermere as a book is set to be released about his life.

Milan Ivanič's paintings and drawings have featured in numerous prominent international galleries in the UK, Europe, USA and Australia. 

His large-scale pen and ink drawings were selected for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, and his portrait ‘The History Men’ was included in the 2015 National Portrait Gallery’s annual exhibition.

Now many of his works form the centrepiece of the Autumn 2025 ‘Art in the Atrium’ gallery at Low Wood Bay Resort and Spa.

Milan's latest exhibition, ‘Capturing the Northern Landscape’, celebrates the love he has for his adopted home. 

He settled in the north of England in 1986 and ever since, the dramatic landscapes of Cumbria, Lancashire and Yorkshire have been his inspiration. 

Many of the area’s vistas, rivers and walks are featured in his drawings and paintings on display.

English Lakes Hotels Resorts & Venues has partnered with Gavagan Art to showcase Milan’s drawings and paintings to a wider North West audience and give hotel guests and visitors the chance to see his work in the free, open exhibition. 

Milan’s work derives from close engagement with the landscape and culture of the British Isles, while retaining an accent of central Europe and reflecting a respect for the traditions of classical European art.  

He grew up in the village of Sebuzín, where the river Elbe travels north through the mountains between the former Czechoslovakia and Germany.  This was the landscape he loved and the subject of many of his early graphic works.

Before making his home in Lancaster with Roz, Milan lived and worked in Devon, Sussex, London and California.  His artwork features in private collections in the UK, USA, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Norway, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Roz Ivanič has written a book about her husband which is due to be published in November 2025. 

‘Fields of Marks: The Life and Work of Milan Ivanič’ is his life story, illustrated with over 150 of his drawings, prints, paintings and other works.

It starts with the day they met in Czechoslovakia in 1968, when Milan was 21. Early chapters describe his upbringing with his parents, who moved from Slovakia to the Sudetenland at the end of World War II and worked on the railway and in a factory there.

The book tells how Milan left everything behind and came to England to marry Roz, and how he began a new life as a freelance artist from scratch in a different country. Every page of text is illustrated by one or more examples of Milan’s art.

Mary Gavagan from Gavagan Art said: “Milan’s wife Roz says he was ‘the boy who couldn’t stop drawing’.

"His talent was recognised at an early age by his teachers in the former Czechoslovakia and he was encouraged to apply to the Hollar School of Art. From there he gained a place at the highly selective Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. 

"Had he completed the course there, he would have become an ‘akademický malίř’, a state-recognised artist.

“His life then took the most romantic of turns when he met Roz, who was studying in Prague, and he came to England with her in 1970.  Roz and I both started working at Lancaster University in the mid-1980s, but it wasn’t until 2012 and a chance meeting with her and Milan that I discovered he was a talented artist of some renown.”

Simon Berry, executive chairman at English Lakes Hotels Resorts & Venues, said: “This is another wonderful local artist to introduce to our guests here at Low Wood Bay.

“Milan’s compositions over the past six decades consist of what he calls ‘drawing-paintings’ with a wide range of subjects, from spectacular landscapes through to portraits and figures depicting family life. His focus is on the interplay between struggle and celebration, often in abstract form, but always with a foothold in reality.”

The latest exhibition in the ‘Art in the Atrium’ gallery at Low Wood Bay runs through to the New Year. 

The display also includes various works from the Woolwich based Dockyard Ceramics Studio, a London co-operative of artists. 

It features an array of sculptural and functional ceramics created by artists Jonquil Cook, Caroline Nuttall-Smith, Madeline Herbert and Richard Dickson.