Marij Pregelj is one of the most eminent Slovenian painters of the postwar period. He studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in the first half of the 1930s. Not long after, his life underwent a massive upheaval during World War II, as he was interned in Italian and German concentration camps for almost three years, which also left deep traces in his art.

There are several central themes that emerge in his work – portraits, female figures, and companies at table. He created his first companies at table in the concentration camps, later returning to the motif in variations. Drawing on several sources, Pompeian Company at Table represents a monumental version of this motif. On the one hand, it reflects the concentration camp experience of internees gathering around a table to eat their meager meals. On the other, people gathered around a table is a universal and symbolically rich theme – a place of everyday meetings, the satiation of hunger, sacred rituals, and so on.

Another important reference in Pregelj’s art is classical antiquity. Two such elements that stand out in this work are the figure reminiscent of an Ionic column on the right and the large surface of the intense Pompeian red.

The painting features three vertical figures, positioned rhythmically and at the same height. From right to left they are gradually deconstructed, which creates a dramatic vision of human destiny in the 20th century. It is this brutal, expressive deformation of the bodies that places Pregelj alongside artists such as Pablo Picasso, Francis Bacon, and Henry Moore.

In addition to numerous paintings, drawings, and prints, Pregelj also created monumental mural mosaics in Slovenia and Yugoslavia. His works adorn the staircase of the Slovenian Parliament and the façade of the Workers’ Home in Trbovlje, while his largest mosaic, Sutjeska, is located in what is now the Palace of Serbia (formerly the Palace of the Federal Executive Council) in Belgrade.