Winter landscape
| Author: | Mikas Šileikis (1893–1987) |
Mikas Šileikis was a painter, art critic, long-time editor of Meno žinios (Art News, a supplement to Naujienos (The News), a translator, a writer of short stories, and a newspaper columnist. He was born on 15 October 1893 in the village of Liminėlis, in the Zarasai district. In 1913, in order to avoid being conscripted into the Imperial Russian army, he left for the USA. He was one of the first Lithuanian artists to live in America. While Šileikis was in the USA, he attended an art school in Boston, and then the private art school Belle Arti. He graduated from the Chicago Art Institute in 1923. He received a grant from the Academy of Arts of Rome. After the Second World War, he participated in exhibitions of the Chicago Art Institute, artists of Indiana, artists of Illinois, and Lithuanian émigés, and won various awards and prizes. He was one of the founders of the Association of Lithuanian Artists, and one of the founders of the M.K. Čiurlionis Gallery in Chicago. Between 1957 and 1962 he managed the M.K. Čiurlionis Gallery, and established the Mikas Šileikis Foundation. He contributed to Aidai (Echoes), Naujoji Aušra (The New Dawn) and the Encyclopaedia Lithuanica, and edited Meno Žinios (Art News).
Colleagues called Šileikis an academic painter and a lyrical Impressionist. He was a skilled portrait painter. In Lithuania, the M.K. Čiurlionis National Art Museum and the Zarasai Region Museum have acquired landscapes by him. He liked to paint sunlit dunes, beaches, woods, parks, flower beds and gardens, and looked for beauty in nature. His style of painting is gentle, free and easy, and the colours are light and pure. He died on 17 December 1987 in Chicago.
Source: Valiunas Ellex (LAWIN until 2015) art album: THE WORLD OF LANDSCAPES II (2013). Compiler and author Nijolė Tumėnienė.
Mikas Šileikis was a painter, art critic, long-time editor of Meno žinios (Art News, a supplement to Naujienos (The News), a translator, a writer of short stories, and a newspaper columnist. He was born on 15 October 1893 in the village of Liminėlis, in the Zarasai district. In 1913, in order to avoid being conscripted into the Imperial Russian army, he left for the USA. He was one of the first Lithuanian artists to live in America. While Šileikis was in the USA, he attended an art school in Boston, and then the private art school Belle Arti. He graduated from the Chicago Art Institute in 1923. He received a grant from the Academy of Arts of Rome. After the Second World War, he participated in exhibitions of the Chicago Art Institute, artists of Indiana, artists of Illinois, and Lithuanian émigés, and won various awards and prizes. He was one of the founders of the Association of Lithuanian Artists, and one of the founders of the M.K. Čiurlionis Gallery in Chicago. Between 1957 and 1962 he managed the M.K. Čiurlionis Gallery, and established the Mikas Šileikis Foundation. He contributed to Aidai (Echoes), Naujoji Aušra (The New Dawn) and the Encyclopaedia Lithuanica, and edited Meno Žinios (Art News).
Colleagues called Šileikis an academic painter and a lyrical Impressionist. He was a skilled portrait painter. In Lithuania, the M.K. Čiurlionis National Art Museum and the Zarasai Region Museum have acquired landscapes by him. He liked to paint sunlit dunes, beaches, woods, parks, flower beds and gardens, and looked for beauty in nature. His style of painting is gentle, free and easy, and the colours are light and pure. He died on 17 December 1987 in Chicago.
Source: Valiunas Ellex (LAWIN until 2015) art album: THE WORLD OF LANDSCAPES II (2013). Compiler and author Nijolė Tumėnienė.
