Rudolf Barčík, a native of Závodí in Žilina, has always enjoyed drawing since childhood, but he began to pay more attention to his hobby during adolescence under the influence of his cousin Andrej Barčík. At the age of eighteen, he started working as a draftsman, but he was drawn to more creative expression. He had friends in his circle who were studying at the ceramic school in Modra at that time, so when in 1944, two years later, he saw an advertisement in the newspaper for new employees at the local company Slovak Folk Majolica, he decided to apply. He was accepted as an apprentice ceramic painter. In school, he had to go through all the workshop activities involved in ceramics.

He had a talent for painting, but his application to ceramics was specific, and it took him some time to get used to the new approach. However, by 1946, he was considered capable to take the journeyman’s exam, and a year later, he was employed at Majolica. After completing his studies, he continued to expand his professional knowledge through studies in museums, galleries, books, and private collections, as he realized that ceramics had become his destiny and he wanted to dedicate himself to it for the rest of his life. Together with his wife Eva, also a ceramic painter whom he met during his apprenticeship, he settled in Modra and further developed their art.

The manuscript of the old masters became his inspiration, and constant reinterpreting of their patterns pushed him further. Among the ceramic workshops in western Slovakia, he especially favored the demanding and sober-colored Košolná pattern, the three-colored Dechtice ornamentation, and the rose-pattern of Boleráz. In Haban ornamental art, he valued sobriety in color and decoration the most. Just like the oldest Hutterites, he did not use red color (blood) for decoration. Initially, he did not decorate products with paintings of people or animals or humorous themes – although his reason was not religious, like in the case of the oldest Hutterites, but rather artistic. This is evidenced by the fact that he eventually embraced figurative decoration, albeit only after mastering it, when, according to his own words, it no longer caused him difficulties.

Contrary to this, following the example of his teacher Ignác Bizmayer, in 1949 he began modeling the first figurines of people by hand. Ceramic artists and visual artists at ÚĽUV encouraged him to do so, as they were ideologically leading the Modra ceramic cooperative at that time. However, his figurative work also beautifully demonstrates the mastery with which he handled brushes and colors.

In 1957, he was appointed as a designer at the Modra company and later worked there as the head of production and an ideological worker. He was also a member of the artistic and approval committee of the Slovak Union of Production Cooperatives, which included Slovak Folk Majolica. After retiring in 1982, he began collaborating with ÚĽUV. He appreciated the freedom of time in this collaboration but saw the downside in the constraint of aligning his work with the direction set by ÚĽUV artists, which, he claimed, prevented him from fully developing his own abilities. Objectively, however, the 1980s may be considered his strongest creative period, but it was interrupted by his death in 1985, just two days before the opening of his first solo exhibition.

Among his works, perhaps the most outstanding are the large four-color plates (green, blue, yellow, purple). They feature a central floral, animal, or figurative motif, with edges filled with stylized floral décor and collections of figures and animals associated with traditional themes of viticulture, pottery, or banditry, presented in a modern expression by the original author.