The exhibition displays the most significant works of art, which have been added to the stocks of the Vilna Gaon State Jewish  Museum over the last two years. They have enriched two important collections: the art and iconography of the Litvaks and the Jews’ life in Lithuania. The series of valuable prints which was restored last year is also on display.

Modernist art trends are represented at the exhibition by the newly-acquired works of art by the Litvak artists with world fame. One of them is the lithograph “Studio” by Pinchus Kremegne of his later period made around 1970. A sculptor, painter and a lithographer, he was born in the shtetl (little town) of Zholudok in the Vilnius province. Kremegne, just like Epstein, first attended the Vilnius School of Drawing and later left for Western Europe. In 1912, he arrived in Paris, the then centre for Modernist art. Becoming one of the Montparnasse painters, he was soon hailed as one of the best expressionists of the L'École de Paris. Just like Kremegne, other authors of the newly-acquired works found refuge in La Ruche (Beehive), a colony of the Parisian bohemians in the 1920s: Nehemia Arbit Blatas and Max Band. Blatas was born in Kaunas and attended the Kaunas School of Art. He is often called the last significant representative of the L'École de Paris. On display are two of his works: “The Seine Riverside” and “Bistro”, which have been influenced by Impressionism, Post-Impressionism and Expressionism.

Three landscapes by Max Band are also exhibited. They were painted using different techniques in different periods and are characterised by lyricism, soft forms and shimmering silhouettes, which as though blend into the shadows.  Born in Kudirkos Naumiestis, he started his artistic career Marijampolė. There he studied art on his own, painted advertisements for Jewish shops and taught art at the town’s Jewish gymnasium. In the early 1920s, helped by the director of the gymnasium M. Mejeris he left for Western Europe to study painting and improve his qualifications. Later he lived in Berlin and Paris and from 1940 in the USA, where he gained international recognition. While in Paris, he held solo exhibitions in Kaunas in 1925 and 1932.

Works by Litvak painters who lived in Israel are also represented at the exhibition. One of them is Yehezkel Streichman, an artist from Kaunas, an influential activist of the New Horizons art movement. In 1924, he went to study at the Bezalel School of Art in Jerusalem under Boris Schatz and Zeev Raban. In 1936, he left Lithuania to live in Israel. He was known not only in Israel but also in Europe and the USA. The Israeli Litvaks’ art is also represented by the younger generation painter Moshe Rozentalis. Born in Marijampolė, he studied at the Kaunas School of Art and the Vilnius State Institute of Art. A former member of the Lithuanian Artists Union, he left for Israel in 1951.

The collection of art and iconography which reflects the life of Jews in Lithuania has acquired several very valuable works of art over recent years: drawings by Walter Buhe (1882–1958), a painter and graphic artist of German origin. They depict views of Jewish Vilnius in 1915 and 1916. Among them is the courtyard-compound of Vilnius synagogues (Shulhoif), as well as the 1924 project of the interior of a synagogue in Kaunas by the artist and architect Vladimiras Dubeneckis.

The series of the restored works of graphic art. The restoration activities carried out by the museum is represented at the exhibition by the series of prints by Artur Kolnik (1890–1972).  It was restored by Paulius Zovė at the P. Gudynas Restoration centre in 2008. There is an interesting story behind these prints which came to light two years ago and that is why they have been restored. The Lithuanian State Art Museum gave them over to the State Vilna Gaon Jewish Museum in 1991. Very little was known about the prints, and as it turned out later they had been wrongly attributed. The artist’s signature was difficult to read; the stamps showed that they had belonged to the post-war Jewish museum in Vilnius. They were in bad repair: the yellowed paper was dirty, torn and crumpled. In 2008, Irina Nikitina, the art critic in charge of art collections carried out a thorough examination of the works and established that they were made by Artur Kolnik, a Jewish artist from Ukraine.

Kolnik studied at the Krakow Academy of Art and took part in the activities of the Kultur lige, the Ukrainian Jewish painters’ section of the 1920s. In 1921, he held an exhibition in the USA. From 1931 to 1972 he lived in France, taking part in exhibitions together with members of L'École de Paris. He also illustrated books in Yiddish.

During the war, Kolnik’s exhibition Through Eyeglasses was held in the Vilnius Ghetto, and featured the artist’s illustrations for Eliezer Steinberg’s book of fables which, was printed in Chernovtsy in 1932. A bill of the exhibition was discovered at the Lithuanian Central State Archive. It turned out that the museum has the original documents of the Vilnius Ghetto, several bills, drawings by Samuel Bak made at the Vilnius Ghetto, as well as several prints by Kolnik, which had been exhibited at the ghetto. Together with other works by Kolnik, which have miraculously survived, they are also exhibited, restored and attributed.

Dr. Aistė Niunkaitė Račiūnienė

Photographer Paulius Račiūnas