About TARTLE
Lithuanian Art Centre TARTLE located in Užupis district in Vilnius provides an opportunity to get acquainted with Lithuanian art treasures and historical artefacts from cultural heritage of the pagan times to the contemporary art. The target of the collection and the art centre is not only to collect and bring back to homeland the Lithuanian cultural and historical heritage scattered all over the world, but also – what is most important – to make it available to the general public and introduce Lithuania’s history through art. The founders of the Lithuanian Art Centre: the Lithuanian Art Foundation (public entity) and collector Rolandas Valiūnas.
The centre is unique as it provides the possibility to get acquainted with Lithuania’s history through art, i.e. by seeing in person original art exhibits from different time periods. Among them is the biggest private collection of medals and sculptures by Petras Rimša; a unique folk art collection; the only in Lithuania such large-scale collection of GDL maps; little-known albums by Franciszek Smuglewicz published in Rome; a collection of Lithuanian books of almost 2 thousand specimens; impressive graphic art collections by Kazimierz Wilczyński and Napoleon Orda; a full collection of inter-war Lithuania’s stamps; silverware by Vilnius masters, such as a unique watch by the most famous watchmaker of the 17th century in Vilnius, Jacob Gierke; the biggest sculpture in Lithuania by Jacques Lipschitz; a collection of works by the inter-war Vilnius artists, and many other valuable exhibits.