PainterAntanas

Zmuidzinavicius

By: Marija ŠironaitėGintarė Pundytė

Orinta JurkevičiūtėRaimonda Grikienytė

BiographyPainter, born in Seirijai southern Lithuania, on

October 31, 1876. Deciding to take up the study of art, he

went to Warsaw in 1898, where he began his training with the noted Polish painter

of historical subjects, Wojciech Gerson. He showed his first works at an exhibition of the Art Salon of Warsaw in 1902.

A. Zmuidzinavičius

(1876 – 1966)

Shortly after his arrival in Vilnius in the summer of 1906, he was

elected chairman of a committee which organized the first

exhibition of Lithuanian artists. The exhibit was opened on 1907; of the 213 canvases

shown, 35 were his, including such delicately hued landscapes

as The River Neris near Antakalnis, Hamlet in Dzukija, A Lithuanian After Work, and Exile.

Through his efforts and of others, the Lithuanian Art

Society (Lietuviu Dailes Draugija) came into being that same year;

he was elected its president.

                         

A. Zmuidzinavičius collection of Lithuanian folk art

In 1908 he set out on a journey which took him through Western Europe and ended in the United States. 

In 1914 he travelled in northern Norway painting arctic landscapes and came back to Vilnius just before the outbreak of World War I.

He returned to Vilnius in autumn of 1909 and resumed his activities with the Art Society.In 1912 he went to Hamburg to study fresco painting.

After the war, living in Kaunas, he continued to concern himself with the organisational life of art and took an active part in civic affairs throughout the period of independence. At a retrospective exhibit of Lithuanian art in 1920 he displayed 109 canvases.

He revisited the United States in 1922–1924; exhibitions of his art were held in Washington (1923), and in Chicago and New York (1924). From 1926–1931, he headed the revived Lithuanian Art Society.

One picture from exhibition in Washington

Throughout his long life he was an ardentcollector, amassing an extensive and valuable collection of Lithuanian art, historic and ethnographic items, and folk artefacts. A portion of this collection is housed in museums in Kaunas and Vilnius, and the rest in the museum bearing his name, which was founded in Kaunas in 1965.

A. Zmudzinavičius Memorial Museum in Kaunas

Famous works:“Gavo laišką” 1904m. (“Recieving a Letter”)

“Neris ties Antakalniu” 1906 (“Neris near Antakalnis”)

“Per kiaurą naktį” 1906m. (“All Through the Night”)

“Nemunas prieš audrą” 1917m. (“Nemunas before the storm”)

“Dvi pušys” 1931m. (“Two Pines”)

“Poilsis” 1920 m. (“Recreation ”)

His other works:“Sielvartas” (“Susigraudinimas”) (1906) “Paskutiniai spinduliai” (1908), “Tado Daugirdo portretas” (1910), “Petro Rimšos portretas” (1911), “Tinklai džiūsta” (1926), “Linų kūlimo talka” (1926)

His works from devil museum:

Antanas Zmuidzinavicius “Sielvartas” (1906)

Antanas Zmuidzinavicius

1912

The Post Stamp1 Lt Antanas Zmuidzinavicius (1876 -1966)

The End