© Slovak Post, 2006 Dezider Milly, holder of National Artist honors, was the founding and most significant artist representing Ruthenian-Ukranian art in Slovakia. He was born on 7 August 1906 in Kyjov, Stará Ľubovňa district. He received his artistic training from 1926–1933 at the Vysoká umelecko-priemyselná škola (Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design) in Prague under the tuition of Professors J. Schusser and A. Hofbauer. Returning home after graduating, D. Milly had greater perception of the country around him, and in the daily life of the village. This is evident in his work: Orlov Landscape, 1941; Kyjov, 1942; Betrothal, 1942; Orlov Bride, 1942; Bleak Fields, 1944; and Shop in Kyjov, 1945. His most significant compositions of this period have a symbolic, melancholy character, specifically the multiple depictions of Vagabond and Krivý Jarok. The girl’s face, reflecting grief, angst, desolation and desperation, embodies the hard life of the village; while the terraced, furrowed, knoll of the Krivý Jarok hill epitomizes the artist’s birthplace. In his last productive period, D. Milly arrived at a new and modern type of landscape painting, which, together with the Vagabond and Krivý Jarok themes, was to best characterize his work. Even while teaching, he continued painting, drawing, print-making, illustration and scenic design. D. Milly died on 1 September 1971 in Bratislava, where he is also buried. The first day cover features the work Grief from a series of illustrations (lithograph, 1946, Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava), and the cancellation mark is a fragment of In the Studio (1947, drawing, from the collection of the Orava Gallery, Dolný Kubín). Ladislav Puškár