Lojze Dolinar was one of the most prominent sculptors of the generation that marked the period between the two world wars. Particularly in the 1920s and early 1930s, Dolinar’s work was characterized by a simplified stylization reminiscent of the popular Croatian sculptor Ivan Meštrović

Hard Life, also known under its original title of Shattered Happiness, is an expressionist work both in subject and composition. It’s a representation of a man and a woman, clinging to each other in a desperate embrace over a stone center between their bodies. The expressionistically shaped, unnaturally twisted female body is further emphasized by the expressive content conveyed through the suffering faces and the hunched posture of the man. The muscles on the two figures are very pronounced in an echo of classical sculpture and Michelangelo, while the stylization with oval breaks in the folds is modern. A great admirer of Auguste Rodin, Dolinar also adopted the interplay between the roughly hewn base and rock, and the two smoothly polished figures rising out of them. The human forms are polished to a high shine, and reminiscent in this and their decorative stylization of the then fashionable Art Deco sculptures. In the 1930s, Dolinar began to abandon such stylization.

The stylistic features characterizing Hard Life can also be found in Dolinar’s architectural sculptures, which he began producing in collaboration with architects in that period. His works adorn numerous public buildings in Ljubljana and Belgrade. In Ljubljana they can be seen on several buildings along Miklošičeva Street (e.g., the Delavska zbornica palace and the two bas-reliefs on the building of Zavod za zdravstveno zavarovanje Slovenije), on Nebotičnik, the National and University Library, and elsewhere.