Milan Heger is many things: an artist, an architect, an author, and a designer of interiors, furniture and fashion. Ultimately, his mission is to create beauty across disciplines. He transforms ordinary objects into works of art. Born in Lucenec, Czechoslovakia, (now part of Slovakia), Milan came from a family of educators.
Born in communist Czechoslovakia, Milan grew up in a highly censored and restricted community. Later, he studied fine art in Budapest, Hungary, under Ernest Fischer, then architecture. Milan founded the private design firm in a communist setting, FreeART, which focused on design, interiors, and architecture. He is a frequent lecturer on design, art, and architecture and teaches at his alma mater, the Technical Institute in Bratislava, Slovakia.
In 1989, Milan accepted a visiting professorship at the University of Hawaii, where he taught for two years. Afterward, Milan returned to Czechoslovakia and participated in the Velvet Revolution. After working as an architect in Hawaii for a number of years, he moved to the Pacific Northwest in 1997 to open his own architecture and design firm.
He has created collections of work based on the concept of freedom. At first, his concept of freedom was the ability to come to American and experience artistic freedom. Now he has come to view freedom in many forms, not only physical, but the freedom of thinking, the freedom of speech and, last but not least, financial freedom. In 2010 Milan Heger published his highly acclaimed autobiographical novel, The Art of Freedom.
Last year Milan was invited to exhibit his work by the Bohemian National Hall in New York City, funded by Czechs and Slovaks to preserve their cultural heritage. Conversations with Ego, featuring portraits of celebrities and cultural icons, received rave reviews. One portrait depicted Andy Warhol, who was of Slovak descent. Warhol’s grandson came to the opening, as well as Warhol’s former girlfriend and “It-girl” of the velvet underground, Ultraviolet. With all of these accomplishments behind him, it is difficult to think what could be next for Milan Heger . “I feel that I’m at my highest level of creativity ever,” he said.
To see more work by Milan Heger, please go to Saatchi Art Online
Milan Heger on the
Art of Freedom