Lojze Spacal (1907-2000) was a painter and graphic artist born in Trieste. He studied in Venice, Monza and Milan, at the Brera Academy.

At the beginning of his career, he started working with oil painting, but started soon enough to experiment with woodcuts and linocuts, and later with graphics.
Lojze was able to master different artistic practices; he explored different techniques like fresco painting, mosaic, tapestry, sculpture and printmaking.
Spacal was not accustomed to share his techniques and discoveries with other artists, nor was he interested in having a young assistant to mentor who could follow his work. Nevertheless, as Franco Vecchiet, an artist from Trieste, once pointed out “his graphic works became a benchmark to follow for artists and designers of the second half of the twentieth century.”

Piran Coastal Galleries have one of his woodcuts in collection, which dates to the beginning of the 50s and is named Otroško igrišče (the playground), which expresses the sophistication and elegance of his visual language. The geometric style of this artwork creates a new language made of symbols and signs, beyond which the outlines of the objects and their colours remain relatively distinguishable.

In the landscapes inspired by the Karstic-Istrian panorama, the author has been able to evoke the proper atmosphere and peculiarities of the territory. The human figure is absent, but his presence is perceptible through the traces left by his passage.
A perfect example of this series of works is the woodcut on display Otroško igrišče, where the playful composition of the artwork reveals the human intervention.