The Hlebine School is the term applied to a group of naive painters working in or around the village of Hlebine, near the Hungarian border, from about 1930. The school developed from the encouragement given by Krsto Hegedušić to the young painter Ivan Generalić, whom he met in 1930. Generalić and his friends Franjo Mraz (also a native of Hlebine) and Mirko Virius (from the nearby village of Đelekovec) formed the nucleus of the group. In 1931, they were invited to exhibit with the Earth group, which brought public recognition and naive art became a popular form of artistic expression in Croatia, making a strong social statement about the harshness of rural life. Generalić was the first master of the Hlebine School, and the first to develop a distinctive personal style, achieving a high standard in his art.