Impression of a landscape
| Author: | Albertas Vesčiūnas (1921–1976) |
The painter Albertas Vesčiūnas was born on 31 July 1921 in Pandėlys. He began to study architecture at Kaunas Vytautas Magnus University in 1940. In 1944, he fled Lithuania, and continued his studies until 1947 in Stuttgart. In 1948 and 1949, as an external student at Stuttgart Kunstakademie, he attended classes given by the famous abstractionist Willi Baumeister. He settled in New York in 1949, and in 1952 and 1953 he studied at the Art Students League in New York under the painter and graphic artist Will Barnet. He began to participate in exhibitions in the USA and Germany from 1956, at New York Museum of Modern Art, the Artists’ Gallery, the National Academy, the Institute of Foreign Relations in Stuttgart, and the Audubon 15th Annual Art exhibition in New York (all in 1957). He painted abstract pictures in blue, yellow and green, with sensitive, light and fine multilayered brushstrokes, thus creating tremulous, pulsating and seemingly alive surfaces to his pictures, recalling the spontaneity of nature. At the end of the 1950s, by which time he had become a famous painter, he left for France, and worked in Villefranche-sur-mer. He held personal exhibitions there and in West Berlin (1959). He returned to New York with his friend Ž. Mikšys, and began a new painting style in acrylics. But with the appearance of new trends in postmodern art, his paintings were not noticed. Vesčiūnas stopped painting, and his health and his eyesight deteriorated. On 15 March 1976, unable to endure the loneliness, lack of recognition and poverty, he took his own life in his studio in New York.
Most of Vesčiūnas’ artistic legacy has disappeared. He continued the Classical tradition in his drawings and lithographs, and revived expressive, flexible and sensitive lines. Vesčiūnas was strongly influenced by Impressionism and by Van Gogh. He painted passionate pictures full of colour. His works were acquired by the State Gallery in Berlin, the M.K. Čiurlionis National Art Museum (the M. Žilinskas collection) and the Lithuanian Art Museum (a gift from Aldona Veščiūnaitė-Janavičienė, the artist’s sister, in Australia).
Source: Valiunas Ellex (LAWIN until 2015) art album: THE WORLD OF LANDSCAPES II (2013). Compiler and author Nijolė Tumėnienė.
The painter Albertas Vesčiūnas was born on 31 July 1921 in Pandėlys. He began to study architecture at Kaunas Vytautas Magnus University in 1940. In 1944, he fled Lithuania, and continued his studies until 1947 in Stuttgart. In 1948 and 1949, as an external student at Stuttgart Kunstakademie, he attended classes given by the famous abstractionist Willi Baumeister. He settled in New York in 1949, and in 1952 and 1953 he studied at the Art Students League in New York under the painter and graphic artist Will Barnet. He began to participate in exhibitions in the USA and Germany from 1956, at New York Museum of Modern Art, the Artists’ Gallery, the National Academy, the Institute of Foreign Relations in Stuttgart, and the Audubon 15th Annual Art exhibition in New York (all in 1957). He painted abstract pictures in blue, yellow and green, with sensitive, light and fine multilayered brushstrokes, thus creating tremulous, pulsating and seemingly alive surfaces to his pictures, recalling the spontaneity of nature. At the end of the 1950s, by which time he had become a famous painter, he left for France, and worked in Villefranche-sur-mer. He held personal exhibitions there and in West Berlin (1959). He returned to New York with his friend Ž. Mikšys, and began a new painting style in acrylics. But with the appearance of new trends in postmodern art, his paintings were not noticed. Vesčiūnas stopped painting, and his health and his eyesight deteriorated. On 15 March 1976, unable to endure the loneliness, lack of recognition and poverty, he took his own life in his studio in New York.
Most of Vesčiūnas’ artistic legacy has disappeared. He continued the Classical tradition in his drawings and lithographs, and revived expressive, flexible and sensitive lines. Vesčiūnas was strongly influenced by Impressionism and by Van Gogh. He painted passionate pictures full of colour. His works were acquired by the State Gallery in Berlin, the M.K. Čiurlionis National Art Museum (the M. Žilinskas collection) and the Lithuanian Art Museum (a gift from Aldona Veščiūnaitė-Janavičienė, the artist’s sister, in Australia).
Source: Valiunas Ellex (LAWIN until 2015) art album: THE WORLD OF LANDSCAPES II (2013). Compiler and author Nijolė Tumėnienė.
