ANTANAS GUDAITIS'S ANNIVERSARY ART EXHIBITION “LIBERATION”
The Radvila Palace (Vilniaus g. 22, Vilnius), 5 July – 15 November 2004

Antanas Gudaitis (1904–1989)
Antanas Gudaitis Art Gallery under way
Virtual Exhibition "Creative of Antanas Gudaitis"

This exhibition has been prepared by the Lithuanian Art Museum and is curated by the art critics doctors Lolita Jablonskiene and Jolita Muleviciute.
A. Gudaitis's artistic heritage is uncommonly multi-faceted and colourful. Although it is customary to describe this artist's works by the general term of lyrical expressionism, his paintings combine a variety of sources and trends. In Gudaitis's works of different periods the influence of Paul Cezanne's stylistics, the features of art deco and neo-classicism, the tendencies of realism, expressionism and abstract art can be noticed. The artist also used a broad scale of iconography ranging from simple motifs of nature to social grotesque and majestic mythical imagery. Gudaitis painted still-lifes, landscapes and portraits. But a figure composition distinguished by monumental dramatism and conforming to no definite genre canons was his natural element. This composition could spring out from the most unexpected stimulus: from Goya's painting and Antanas Miskinis's verse, from a musical phrase and childhood remembrance, and from an historical event and a fragment of reality that became imprinted in the painter's memory.
It is a multi-dimensional and dynamic character of Gudaitis's heritage that this retrospective exhibition attempts to demonstrate. 125 paintings, 75 graphic imprints and drawings, 14 theater decorations and costume outlines and some other works are included into this exhibition. The anniversary exposition is comprised of several groups of the artist's works that contrast and compliment each other and only partially coincide with the chronological development of Gudaitis's art. There are nine thematical parts: “Beginning” (Pradzia), “Paris. Mastering of a Form” (Paryzius. Formos įvaldymas), “Vieksniai. ... What Lies Inside of You” (Vieksniai. ...tai, kas yra tavo viduje), “Modernism and Tradition” (Modernizmas ir tradicija), “Art for the People” (Menas - visuomenei), “Back to the Nature: Between an Obligation and Inspiration”(Atgal į gamta: tarp prievolės ir įkvėpimo), “A Riot” (Siautėjimas), “Beyond Freedom” (Anapus laisvės) and “Encounters” (Susitikimai). These parts like the pages of a monograph (it is not by accident that each part begins with the quotation of the artist's thoughts from Tomas Sakalauskas's book) draw a complex trajectory of artistic inquiries that combines a biographical narrative with a problematic point of view. Furthermore, the exhibition is not limited to Gudaitis's paintings and graphical engravings. The artist's works of applied art such as decorative panels, posters, theater decorations and costume skeches are also included. This retrospective overview is enriched by various publications, archival photographs and documents, Algimantas Kuncius's collection of photographs and his video-improvisation “Antanas Gudaitis. By the Bridges of Remembrance” (Antanas Gudaitis. Prisiminimų tiltais) created from the 1979-1981 filmed material and Rimtautas Silinis and Andrius Siusa's documentary “Picture” (Paveikslas, 1981). All this material allows to situate Gudaitis's art works in the context of historical and personal events and to reconstruct a broader landscape of his time.
The motif of liberation unites all sections of the exhibition. This motif is revealed by several interconnected lines, namely by the aspects of imagination, artistic expression, cultural attitude and spiritual freedom. An attempt to liberate oneself - the main principle of modernist art - is particularly distinctive in Gudaitis's works. The artist transformed even the process of painting into a heroic creationalist act that freed him from the visible world and meaningless chaotic existence.
This retrospective, however, does not have a possibility to represent comprehensively all nuances of Gudaitis's work. Only fragmentary view of the artist's works from the 80s and 90s is presented. By selecting the exhibits, the curators of the exhibition attempted to introduce to viewers not only the most important works of the painter but also less known sides of his artistic life overlooked and underemphasized by art critics. Perhaps this anniversary exhibition commemorating one of the most prominent Lithuanian artists of the 20th century will prompt us to further analyze both Gudaitis's heritage and the problems of the history of modern Lithuanian art.
Gudaitis's works presented in this exhibition have been taken not only from the Lithuanian Art Museum but also from the National M. K. Ciurlionis Art Museum, Siauliai “Ausra” Museum, Lithuanian National Museum, Lithuanian Theater, Music and Film Museum and the Division of Graphic Art of the library of Vilnius University. The art works from the collection of the Gudaitis family and Ingrida Korsakaite, Justinas Marcinkevicius and Henrikas Zabulis's personal collections are also exhibited. The Lithuanian Literature and Art Archive and the artist's family have kindly lent the documents and photographs.
This exhibition of the artist Antanas Gudaitis as all other events commemorating the centennial of his birth can be considered as an introduction to the opening of the Lithuanian National Art Gallery on the right bank of Neris in Vilnius in 2007 and to the construction of Antanas Gudaitis Art Gallery at Zemaite public garden on Gediminas Avenue that is to start in 2004.

ANTANAS GUDAITIS (1904-1989)
Antanas Gudaitis was born on July 29, 1904, in Siauliai. In 1922-1926 he studied at Siauliai Teachers' seminary. In 1926 he entered the Humanities Faculty of the Lithuanian University and the second year of the General Division of the Art School in Kaunas since he had received some initial art knowledge in the seminary. In 1929, because of his participation in a student strike Gudaitis was expelled from Kaunas Art School. After attending Justinas Vienozinskis's studio for several months, the same year he left for Paris in order to develop his drawing and painting skills.
In Paris the artist attended the private Julian academy for a short while, studied briefly at a French painter Andre Lhote and a Russian emigree Aleksandra Ekster. During 1930-1932, Gudaitis studied mural art at the National Art and Crafts Conservatory. He would also paint at Colarossi Academy in Montparnasse. At the same time the artist did not lose touch with Lithuania; he became one of the founders of the group "Ars", and in 1932 and 1934 he participated in the exhibitions of this Lithuanian modernist group in Kaunas. After returning to Lithuania in 1933, Gudaitis engaged in social activities. In 1935 together with other artists he founded the Union of Lithuanian Artists; from 1936 he served as its board member.
After moving to the regained capital in 1940, Gudaitis began to teach at Vilnius Art Academy. In 1944 he became a professor of the State Art Institute of LSSR, During his forty five years as a teacher (he left the Institute only in 1985) Gudaitis trained the great number of Lithuanian painters.
Antanas Gudaitis died in 1989 and was burried at Antakalnis cementary in Vilnius.
His pedagogy and his own art oriented future artists toward active gestural expression, therefore in time his name came to be deservedly associated with the Lithuanian school of colouristic painting.
It is possible to ascribe Gudaitis to charismatic personalities that lend purposefulness, scope and meaning to the development of culture by uniting various art processes. Attracting by their authority artists of different generations, such personalities maintain and preserve a fragile thread of artistic continuity. There are not many such figures in the Lithuanian art history.

ANTANAS GUDAITIS ART GALLERY UNDER WAY
Antanas Gudaitis (1904-1989) is the great Lithuanian painter whose works belong to one of the most important artistic values of the 20th century. He is the most obvious classic of the Lithuanian art, an integral personality that influenced immensely Lithuanian art and art education. A conceptual and multi-faceted exhibition “Liberation” (Issilaisvinimas) at the Lithuanian Art Museum curators dr. Lolita Jablonskiene and dr. Jolita Muleviciute), celebrations of the artist's anniversary, demonstration of his works at the exhibition of the new EU states entitled “New Boundaries: Art from the New European Union Countries” at the Irish National Art Gallery in Dublin in March-April. 2004, commemorated the centennial of Gudaitis's birth. However, it is particularly important to solve as soon as possible the problem of a permanent exhibition space for this artistic renovator's heritage in order to display Gudaitis's works permanently both in the reconstructed Lithuanian Art Gallery and in the main space of his art works, Antanas Gudaitis art gallery that is currently being created.
On December 24, 1985, in his will, the artist decided to give as a gift to Lithuania his two hundred paintings (among them, several monumental compositions) and four hundred sketches and pictures provided that after his death a gallery would be built in Zemaite public garden on Gediminas Avenue near his studio. Gudaitis left the above mentioned works to the Lithuanian Art Museum that preserves the largest collections of the Lithuanian national art heritage.
After the artist's death, various ways of executing his will have been discussed. The state did not find financial resources to build a gallery for the artist by his studio, and on June 9. 1992, the government of the Republic of Lithuania, following the proposal of the minister of Culture and Education Darius Kuolys decided to assign a plot at Gudaitis's studio (Gediminas Av. 27, Zemaite public garden, Vilnius) for the building of a gallery. After a few years of searching, the Lithuanian Art Museum had found several potential investors from which the state commission formed by the Ministry of Culture chose the future investor, Joint Stock Company “E. L. L. Nekilnojamas turtas” (E. L. L. Real Estate). On April 14. 1995, specifying the mentioned resolution, the government of the Republic of Lithuania once more decided to hand the plot in Zemaite public garden directly to the Lithuanian Art Museum which would organize, in 2001, together with the Union of Lithuanian Architects and the Municipality of Vilnius an architectural competition for Gudaitis art gallery. From the 21 submitted projects, the state commission selected the winning project by the architects Algis
Vysniunas and Sigitas Rimkevicius who designed a creative and functional building in which both A. Gudaitis art gallery and a commercial institution could be established. After long debates at Vilnius municipal councils and commissions, this project has been essentially approved. Although all formalities have not been yet agreed on for Gudaitis's centennial, the cornerstone of the famous artist's gallery is expected to be put down this year.
A space of A. Gudaitis art gallery that is currently being created will surprise visitors not only with modern spacious exhibition halls organically connected to the artists studio as a permanent memorial exposition of his art works, an exhibition center, conference and education halls but also with a representative courtyard in which, by the memorial of Zemaite, concerts, cultural evenings and art celebrations will be organized. Thus, the Lithuanian art classic A. Gudaitis gallery as a subdivision of the Lithuanian Art Museum will become a new poly-functional art institution preserving and reviving the artistic heritage of Gudaitis and his contemporaries and representing contemporary art and music of Lithuania and other countries. This gallery will humanize the northern part of Gediminas Avenue that lacks cultural institutions by providing the environment with artistic unexpectedness and suggestiveness. The 1300 square meters of an exposition, an exhibition center, the artist's memorial studio in this gallery and a cozy space of the courtyard will comprise an impressive center of the 20th-century art and art education. In this publication, we offer you some images of this center.

Romualdas Budrys
Director of the Lithuanian Art Museum

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