Antanas Gudaitis’s exhibition at Pranas Domšaitis Gallery celebrates the artist’s 121st anniversary

Pranas Domšaitis Gallery (Liepų St 33, Klaipėda) of the LNMA invites the public of coastal Lithuania to the opening of the exhibition Antanas Gudaitis. Compositions at 6 pm Thursday 15 May. The exhibition is dedicated to one of the most significant and vibrant periods of Antanas Gudaitis’s career from 1959 until his passing in 1989. The conceivers of the exhibition seek to map out how the artist’s ideas come about starting with his first notes, sketches and studies to the final versions of the artwork, allocating equal attention to each of these stages. The visitors will be able to see archival materials and photographs by Algimantas Kunčius, and 16 mm film footage capturing the painter’s everyday environment – his home, studio, the art school and cultural milieu. The exhibition is open until 5 October.     

“One of my goals in putting together this exhibition is to trace the routes Gudaitis tries out to elaborate creative ideas before arriving at the final stage of his works – all the approaches he would try out, the number of sketches and preparatory studies he would make. To me it compares to the process of writing musical compositions, when but small changes of rhythm, melody or motif cause the shapes, their treatment, and the line change. In the end, the final piece sometimes appears less interesting compared to its intermediate versions, sketches or studies. The compositions of his canvases depend on associations, metaphors, allegories, which in no way can be read straightforwardly and deciphered rationally. Gudaitis's paintings were always characterized by a free and adaptable approach to figure – allowing each individual to interpret it based on their personal experiences and education”, Algė Gudaitytė, the exhibition curator, explains.  

Gudaitis’s journey: between Parisian modernism and Soviet censorship 

Antanas Gudaitis is Lithuanian-20th-century artist who carried all the burden of historical cataclysms and trials of the Lithuanian nation. Born in 1904, when Lithuania still was part of the Russian Empire, he experienced two world wars, a short period of Lithuania’s independence, the German and Soviet occupations, all the oppressions. He did not live to see the reestablishment of Lithuanian statehood. 

In 1929–1935, Gudaitis studied in Paris, where his artistic perceptions were shaped on the principles of modernism. His main creative impulses were derived from his personal experience, he was a person susceptive to different cultural, political and life events, who kept reinventing himself as an artist. When he returned in Kaunas in 1932, he undertook, with his friends, the realization of the idea of an exhibition of modern Lithuanian art. The exhibition was accompanied by a publication called “Ars”, the introduction of which later came to be regarded as the first Lithuanian art manifesto. Throughout his entire career Gudaitis remained faithful to his artistic principles and values, which in the 1930s underpinned his endeavour to rejuvenate Lithuanian art.  The artist’s take on art and life are best reflected in his own words: “I believe that moral purity is the greatest value humans can aspire to both in life and art. Also, honesty – to oneself and to others. For me that matters ultimately. In art and life, likewise.” 

Antanas Gudaitis cared most not for a perfect, finalized piece of art, but for the process of discoveries, continuous meditation on the theme selected and the variety of possible solutions. In his art he matched free, vibrant ideas with careful preparation and clearly premeditated compositions. His works not infrequently invited criticism – he was accused of formalism, as human figures, their feelings or relationships were not always easily read in his canvases. His manner of painting, abrupt, expressive, sketch-like contributed to such perceptions. Yet these formal qualities – colour, lines, textures – were the main means for him to articulate his theme. The meaning of the works was brought across by artistic parlance he selected, emphasised yet more by cultural, political or historical context. The impact of Gudaitis’s painting is undivided: colour in his canvases cannot be separated from line or brushwork. His artwork is devoid of a clear subject matter, and the true thoughts and feelings of the creator are hidden between the lines or in the title.  

The architecture of the exhibition and works on display 

The architecture of the exhibition invites the visitors besides looking, to experience the artwork. The first version of the display was presented in the autumn of 2024 at Titanikas Gallery of Vilnius Academy of Art. The space of the current exhibition is divided into separate parts, the arrangement of which creates the impression of a train fleeing by – as if travelling through creative periods of the artist.  

The exhibition features over a hundred pieces by Antanas Gudaitis, from paintings to sketches and preparatory studies. The visitors thus can follow the development of the artist’s thought from the inception of an idea, through its metamorphoses before it eventually settles in its final shape. The inclusion of materials that witness the process of creating art, versus just the finished pieces, rekindle the atmosphere of the artist’s studio. 

The display is partially chronological, and the viewers can retrace the artist’s creative journey from his early sketches to mature paintings. It is not only a display of artwork, but an engaging narrative evoking the artist’s pursuits, transformations of his style and artistic maturity. 

Antanas Gudaitis. Compositions at Pranas Domšaitis Gallery of the LNMA is on from  15 May until 5 October 

Organisers: Antanas Gudaitis Art Foundation, Pranas Domšaitis Gallery of the LNDM 

Supporter Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania

Curator Algė Gudaitytė

Coordinators: Skaistė Marčienė, Aurelija Malinauskaitė

Architect Ieva Cicėnaitė

Designer Rusnė Šimulynaitė

Photography and film material by Algimantas Kunčius

Editing by Ignas Urbonas