Background
Savinšek was born in the Upper Carniolan town of Kamnik, then part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (now in Slovenia), where he spent his youth.
Savinšek was born in the Upper Carniolan town of Kamnik, then part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (now in Slovenia), where he spent his youth.
After finishing secondary school in Ljubljana, he studied medicine at the University of Ljubljana. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, he studied drawing under the tutorship of Rihard Jakopič and sculpture under the supervision of Karla Bulovec Mrak.
During World World War II and the Italian occupation of Ljubljana he was imprisoned in the Ljubljana Castle for collaborating with the Liberation Front of the Slovenian People. In 1942, he was later sent to the Gonars concentration camp. He was released after the Italian armistice in September 1943.
A devout Roman Catholic, he decided to join the Slovenian Home Guard, an Anti-Communist militia collaborating with the Wehrmacht against the partisan resistance.
He deserted before the end of the war, thus securing himself an indulgent treatment by the new Titoist regime. Between 1945 and 1949, he studied sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana.
In the 1950s he emerged as one of the most prominent Slovenian sculptures of the younger generations, together with Drago Tršar, Boris and Zdenko Kalin. He continued his studies in Vienna, Italy, and Switzerland.
In the late 1950s, he entered in conflict with the foremost Slovenian sculptor of the time, Stojan Batič, and founded his own artistic circle, composed not only of young and talanted visual artist, but of literates and theatre people such as Dino Radojević, Herbert Grün, Saša Vuga, Dušan Pirjevec and Andrej Hieng.
He died in Kirchheim, Germany, while attending a sculptors" workshop. He has been buried in the Žale cemetery in Ljubljana.