Mother and Child

The theme of motherhood has been a prominent element in the sculptor’s work throughout her career. The rich, abstracted lines of the woman’s body and the accentuated female silhouette reflect Jadvyga Mozūraitė-Klemkienė’s (1923–2009) respect for women as bearers of life and as creators. Her studies at the State School of Midwives (1941–1943) and her subsequent work as a midwife at Kaunas University Clinic (1943–1946), along with her unrealised experience of motherhood, probably influenced this interest. In both her sculptures and her linocuts, Mozūraitė-Klemkienė created monumental portraits of women and children, with round, sensitively modelled forms, expressing respect for motherhood, tenderness, and the unity of a mother and her baby. Notable works include Family (Mother) (1965–1966), Family (1966), and Mother and Children (1968). Mother and Child, a terracotta sculpture, was later repeated on a large scale in granite in 1973 and now stands in Kaunas near the Obstetrics Clinic. The same arrangement of a mother cradling and rocking her child can be seen in a later terracotta sculpture. In this version the details differ: the lines of the body are straighter and more angular, and the mother’s long hair reaches down to the ground, serving as an additional counterweight to the body.

Text author Jurgita Ludavičienė

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album THE ART OF MATERIALS. Compiler and text author Jurgita Ludavičienė
Expositions: "Free and Unfree. Lithuanian Art between 1945 and 1990", 9 September 2021 – 30 April 2022, Lithuanian Art Centre TARTLE (Užupio St. 40, Vilnius). Curators Dovilė Barcytė and Ieva Burbaitė.

The theme of motherhood has been a prominent element in the sculptor’s work throughout her career. The rich, abstracted lines of the woman’s body and the accentuated female silhouette reflect Jadvyga Mozūraitė-Klemkienė’s (1923–2009) respect for women as bearers of life and as creators. Her studies at the State School of Midwives (1941–1943) and her subsequent work as a midwife at Kaunas University Clinic (1943–1946), along with her unrealised experience of motherhood, probably influenced this interest. In both her sculptures and her linocuts, Mozūraitė-Klemkienė created monumental portraits of women and children, with round, sensitively modelled forms, expressing respect for motherhood, tenderness, and the unity of a mother and her baby. Notable works include Family (Mother) (1965–1966), Family (1966), and Mother and Children (1968). Mother and Child, a terracotta sculpture, was later repeated on a large scale in granite in 1973 and now stands in Kaunas near the Obstetrics Clinic. The same arrangement of a mother cradling and rocking her child can be seen in a later terracotta sculpture. In this version the details differ: the lines of the body are straighter and more angular, and the mother’s long hair reaches down to the ground, serving as an additional counterweight to the body.

Text author Jurgita Ludavičienė

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album THE ART OF MATERIALS. Compiler and text author Jurgita Ludavičienė
Expositions: "Free and Unfree. Lithuanian Art between 1945 and 1990", 9 September 2021 – 30 April 2022, Lithuanian Art Centre TARTLE (Užupio St. 40, Vilnius). Curators Dovilė Barcytė and Ieva Burbaitė.