Treasures from Australia and the Pacific

KLAIPEDA - More than 700 totems and other traditional artifacts from Australia, Indonesia, Thailand, China, Tibet and various Pacific islands arrived in the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda this month as a gift to the country from Lithuanian-Australian Genovaite Kazokiene.

Kazokiene collected the items over 30 years.

"It's impossible to estimate this collection's value in terms of money," said Romualdas Budrys, director of the Lithuanian Art Museum. "I've seen similar collections in Boston and Paris, and in Holland, which had colonies in the Pacific Ocean. But it is a unique collection in the Baltics."

Kazokiene emigrated from Lithuania during World War II. In Australia she authored a study of the Lithuanian composer and painter Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis and earned a degree in social sciences at Sydney University.

Her passion was traditional exotic art of the Pacific area, and the results of her passion can now be seen in Lithuania.

Kazokiene earlier donated 300 paintings by Lithuanian-Australian artists to the Lithuanian Art Museum.

"Kazokiene is a pensioner now, and an activist in the Lithuanian-Australian community," Budrys said. "Her collection of Australian Aborigine art is really astonishing. Looking at it, one could even accuse Western postmodernist artists of plagiarism.

"The sculptures and masks from New Guinea, Fiji, Vanuatu and other Pacific islands are very impressive too," Budrys said.

An exhibition of the items is planned to open May 18 at the Klaipeda Picture Gallery. The collection will later move to the Museum of Foreign Art, which is presently housed in the Radvila Palace on Vilniaus Street in Vilnius.