Exhibition "The Nomad Artist", 18 February – 24 April 2016
Dedicated to the 125th anniversary of Vladas Eidukevičius' birth, creative exhibition "The Wandering Artist", 18 February – 24 April 2016.
Vladas Eidukevičius (1891–1941) is one of the most famous Lithuanian painters of the interwar period, whose work is like a bridge between classical and modern painting. According to Antanas Gudaitis, he was the only Lithuanian artist who fused Lithuanian painting with Western traditions and remained distinctive.
He was born on August 9, 1891. In the family of Juozas and Juzefa Eidukevičius in Kaunas. He was still quite young when he moved to Riga with his parents who were looking for work. In 1906 he studied in the studio of Bernhard Borchert, and a little later he entered the Riga School of Art, where he studied painting with Janis Rozentalis. 1910–1912 In St. Petersburg and Moscow, he studied art independently, copied paintings in museums.
From 1913 to 1918 he lived in Germany – in Berlin, Munich and Heidelberg. After entering the Munich Academy of Fine Arts, he studied for half a year. At the outbreak of World War I, he was interned as a Russian citizen. He had to spend all the war years in Berlin, earning his living by copying. After the war, he travelled around Europe – visited the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, and France. Constantly traveling, he kept returning to Riga, where he organized several personal exhibitions. For some time he stayed in France – in various places. In 1926 In Paris, he met Kazys Šimonis and Vladas Grybas. At the beginning of 1927, he established relations with Mstislav Dobužinsky and corresponded with him. In November–December 1928, an exhibition of V. Eidukevičius was held in one of the salons in Montmartre in Paris. Before it ended, the artist went to Basel, Switzerland, then by train to Livorno, Italy, from there he sailed by boat to Corsica, where, according to M. Dobužinski's testimony, he visited several times. The paintings painted on this island mark the beginning of a new creative period. In 1929 he returned to Riga for a short time. The artist did not stay anywhere for a longer period of time, looking for creative impulses, and constantly traveled.
In the spring of 1932, V. Eidukevičius came to Lithuania and settled in Kaunas, but even while living here he went on trips from time to time. However, it was in Lithuania that the artist felt his creative maturity. In his autobiography, the artist wrote: "In Lithuania, the goals of the work became clear to me, the technique matured, the harmony of the paints was smoothed, [...] My art grew."
He began to participate in exhibitions in 1911. He organized personal exhibitions in Riga (1922, 1929), Paris (1928), Kaunas (1934), Klaipėda (1939). While living in Lithuania, the painter actively participated in many exhibitions of Lithuanian artists. Although he was a member of the Lithuanian Artists' Union, as a true individualist, he did not belong to any artistic group, but he stayed away from the flow of interwar art, the hustle and bustle of artistic movements and artists' activities of that time.
The circumstances of the artist's death are not known exactly. Based on the testimonies of his contemporaries and some surviving documents, it is assumed that he died on June 22 or 23, 1941 in Aleksotas, Kaunas. After his death, a special committee was formed to take care of the remaining paintings of the painter (120 pieces).
V. Eidukevičius cared little about the fate of his paintings, most of them, apparently, remained on the roadsides of Europe, irrevocably scattered. The artist brought to Kaunas only the remnants of his youthful creations. The early works, judging by the slightly later ones, dated 1918, could have been moderately generalized in form, with a muted brownish coloration. In his later paintings, painted while living in Berlin, one can feel the great influence of the German Expressionists, from whom he adopted an energetic, broad, pastotic manner of painting. Eidukevičius' works can be found in Latvia, Germany, France, as well as in Russia – where the artist left them to pay for food and accommodation. Not all of the paintings painted in Lithuania have survived either, only a small part of his work is preserved here. The artist himself has said that if he collected all his paintings, he could use them to pave the road from Klaipėda to Palanga. The largest and most valuable collection of works by V. Eidukevičius in Lithuania (164 paintings) is accumulated in the Lithuanian Art Museum. Some of his paintings are kept in the M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art (31), one work each is in the M. and K. Petrauskas Lithuanian Music Department of the Kaunas City Museum and the Šiauliai Aušra Museum, and some are in private collections.
Large exhibitions of V. Eidukevičius' works have been held in Lithuania several times – at the Lithuanian Art Museum (1963, 1982, 1991) and the M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art (1982). In addition to the previously shown works, this exhibition also exhibits the works of the painter newly acquired by museums, as well as paintings from the private collections of Rolandas Valiūnas and Algimantas Miškinis. The majority of the exhibition consists of portraits, compositions, landscapes created in the 3-4 decades, characterized by a generalized, classical and laconic composition, rich coloring, and complex multi-layered texture. The works of V. Eidukevičius presented in the exhibition are only a small part of his huge creative legacy, scattered throughout Europe, which is still unknown to the public.