Study of figure (recto). Portrait (verso)

This composition by a student at Stephen Batory University in Vilnius, which cannot easily be identified as a woman, portrays an angular and androgynous creature. It was more important for the artist to render the silhouette of the figure and its relationship with the geometric shapes that made up the background, than to render attributes of its gender. The colour scheme was carefully chosen. We can recognise in the composition the particular artistic milieu of Vilnius, in which the idea of Vytautas Kairiūkštis and his peers in 1923 to arrange a New Art Exhibition (Wystawa Nowej Sztuki) as the first manifestation of Polish Constructivism was born. To put it more precisely, the picture could be called a tame version of Constructivism, rendered through the prism of Sleńdziński-style Neo-Traditionalism, the true home of which would be in Art Deco, which is pleasant to the eye and inoffensive to the usual order of the art world.

Text author Giedrė Jankevičiūtė

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album MORE THAN JUST BEAUTY (2012). Compiler and author Giedrė Jankevičiūtė, KAUNAS–VILNIUS / 1918–1945 (2021). Compilers and text authors Dovilė Barcytė and Ieva Burbaitė
Expositions: “More Than Just Beauty: The Image of Woman in the LAWIN collection”, 12 October – 11 November 2012, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius; "1918-1945 / Kaunas-Vilnius", 27 August 2020 – 21 August 2021, Lithuanian Art Centre TARTLE (Užupio St. 40, Vilnius). Curators Dovilė Barcytė and Ieva Burbaitė.

This composition by a student at Stephen Batory University in Vilnius, which cannot easily be identified as a woman, portrays an angular and androgynous creature. It was more important for the artist to render the silhouette of the figure and its relationship with the geometric shapes that made up the background, than to render attributes of its gender. The colour scheme was carefully chosen. We can recognise in the composition the particular artistic milieu of Vilnius, in which the idea of Vytautas Kairiūkštis and his peers in 1923 to arrange a New Art Exhibition (Wystawa Nowej Sztuki) as the first manifestation of Polish Constructivism was born. To put it more precisely, the picture could be called a tame version of Constructivism, rendered through the prism of Sleńdziński-style Neo-Traditionalism, the true home of which would be in Art Deco, which is pleasant to the eye and inoffensive to the usual order of the art world.

Text author Giedrė Jankevičiūtė

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album MORE THAN JUST BEAUTY (2012). Compiler and author Giedrė Jankevičiūtė, KAUNAS–VILNIUS / 1918–1945 (2021). Compilers and text authors Dovilė Barcytė and Ieva Burbaitė
Expositions: “More Than Just Beauty: The Image of Woman in the LAWIN collection”, 12 October – 11 November 2012, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius; "1918-1945 / Kaunas-Vilnius", 27 August 2020 – 21 August 2021, Lithuanian Art Centre TARTLE (Užupio St. 40, Vilnius). Curators Dovilė Barcytė and Ieva Burbaitė.