Portrait of Bronė Jameikienė

This picture dates from the peak of Adolfas Valeška’s (1905–1994) career, which paradoxically coincided with the first year of the war, and its material shortages and other difficulties. The landscapes he painted in Freiburg in about 1949 are particularly beautiful. Some of them are in the collection of the M.K. Čiurlionis National Art Museum. Valeška probably met the sitter for this portrait, the painter Bronė Jameikienė, whose beauty and personality he conveyed well, near Freiburg, where refugees from Lithuania found asylum. Jameikienė studied at the school of arts and crafts in Freiburg that was established by Vytautas Kazimieras Jonynas. Afterwards, the artist and the model kept in touch. When Jameikienė went to the USA, she settled in Chicago and continued her studies under Valeška. She received her diploma from Chicago Art Institute. She was famous not only as a stained glass artist (she became interested in stained glass in 1956), but also as a supporter of the Lithuanian cultural heritage: together with Valeška, she looked after the preservation and dissemination of the legacy of Franz Domscheit (Pranas Domšaitis).

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album MORE THAN JUST BEAUTY (2012). Compiler and author Giedrė Jankevičiūtė
Expositions: “More Than Just Beauty: The Image of Woman in the LAWIN collection”, 12 October – 11 November 2012, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius
© LATGA, Vilnius 2024

This picture dates from the peak of Adolfas Valeška’s (1905–1994) career, which paradoxically coincided with the first year of the war, and its material shortages and other difficulties. The landscapes he painted in Freiburg in about 1949 are particularly beautiful. Some of them are in the collection of the M.K. Čiurlionis National Art Museum. Valeška probably met the sitter for this portrait, the painter Bronė Jameikienė, whose beauty and personality he conveyed well, near Freiburg, where refugees from Lithuania found asylum. Jameikienė studied at the school of arts and crafts in Freiburg that was established by Vytautas Kazimieras Jonynas. Afterwards, the artist and the model kept in touch. When Jameikienė went to the USA, she settled in Chicago and continued her studies under Valeška. She received her diploma from Chicago Art Institute. She was famous not only as a stained glass artist (she became interested in stained glass in 1956), but also as a supporter of the Lithuanian cultural heritage: together with Valeška, she looked after the preservation and dissemination of the legacy of Franz Domscheit (Pranas Domšaitis).

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album MORE THAN JUST BEAUTY (2012). Compiler and author Giedrė Jankevičiūtė
Expositions: “More Than Just Beauty: The Image of Woman in the LAWIN collection”, 12 October – 11 November 2012, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius
© LATGA, Vilnius 2024