GALDIKAS, Adomas (1893-1969) Born in Mosedis, Lithuania. Studied in St. Petersburg, czarist Russia, at the Baron Stieglitz School of Fine Arts just before the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917; returned to Lithuania to found the National Art School at Kaunas; member of “The Four Winds, an avant-garde literary movement.” Painting in Sweden, Paris, Berlin. Designed banknotes for Lithuanian currency in 1924 and in 1988, when Lithuania regained her freedom. “His first one-man show in 1931 at the Atelier Francais in Paris… so impressed the French critic Waldemar George that he wrote the introduction to the monograph Galdikas published by Editions Arts et Lettres, Paris.” In Lithuania during World War II, he broke with representational painting because “only the sky remained, and that was lurid with the flash of gunfire. He began to paint what only his mind could see – the terrible sky – and freed from the object, he began to paint with color alone.”

In 1944, he and his wife Magdalena wound up in a camp for displaced persons outside Berlin. Working in the French zone in Freiburg, he taught at the Applied Arts Institute until 1947, but Paris had already discovered him, with a major show at the Durand-Ruel. le parisien libre, November 1946: “The landscapes of Adomas Galdikas are like color bouquets.” Badische Zeitung: “The dominating quality of the artist Adomas Galdikas is color … brilliant, burning color. He sees the world with the eyes of a visionary. His art ranks among the highest in Europe.” Das Kunstwerk: “His landscapes are visual color melodies. He stands alone among moderns.”

On January 26, 1948, from Paris, Galdikas writes to Vytautas Jonynas, “I am full of joyful worries.” July 24, 1950: “Returned from Villefranche with many paintings and a half a thousand drawings.” 1952, Galdikas and Magdalena move to Brooklyn, New York. The New York Times, 1956: “Galdikas’ exhibit at the John Myers Gallery … among the brightest color shows of the season. Even a winter landscape and a nocturne providing rainbow hues … these vivid paintings are the result of the most intimate observation of natural details. Galdikas’ style may be called expressionistic with its emphasis on symbolic color and exaggerated movement abstracted from nature.” Particularly after 1965, travels to and from the Franciscan Monastery in Kennebunk. 1973: retrospective show of his work, Lithuania. Fall 2002: Two major Galdikas gouaches sell at the Collins Gallery in Kennebunk for $550 each framed; one unframed Galdikas sells for $250.

Source: Adomas Galdikas: A Color Odyssey by Charlotte Willard

ANDRIEKUS, Leonardas (1914-), poet, born in Barstyciai, county of Mazeikiai, on July 15, 1914. He completed secondary school in Kretinga. He joined the Franciscan Order and subsequently studied at universities in Austria and Italy, where he received the degree of doctor of canon law... Atviros marios (“the open seas”), a collection of his poetry, was published in 1955; Saule kryziuose (“the sun amidst the crosses”), 1960; and Naktigine (“the nightwatch”), 1963. A selection of his poetry was translated into English by Demo Jonaitis and published as Amens in Amber in 1968.

His first book reflects the spirit of St. Francis, while the two subsequent volumes draw inspiration from Lithuanian folk art and nature. His later poetry touches on the early history of Lithuania. Andriekus excels as a poet of nature. According to Charles Angoff, who wrote a foreword to Amens in Amber, “the poem ‘Autumn’ is one of the best poems to that sombre season written in the last 50 years.”

The prevailing tone of his poetry is a seriousness that is, according to Angoff, “laden with soft sorrow.”

Andriekus is at his best when he fuses his religious thought with folk symbolism and historical motifs. Saule kryziuose was awarded the annual prize of the Lithuanian Association for Writers in 1961.

– Lithuanian Encyclopedia entry.

VIZGIRDA, Viktoras (1904-1993) A graduate of Kaunas Art School in Lithuania, Vizgirda painted in Paris and taught at Vilnius School of Fine Arts and Ecole des Arts et Metiers in Freiburg, Germany. His bold landscapes with large brushstrokes may seem roughed in, “but slowly, like a symphony getting underway, the seemingly unrelated parts start falling in line, build up in volume and mass, [and] burst forth in a sonorous, measured whole,” according to critic Edgar J. Driscol, Jr.

ZOROMSKIS, KAZIMIERAS His works are prized as part of the permanent collection of fine arts in the Lithuanian Art Museum beside those of another Lithuanian émigré with a Maine connection, William Zorach (1887-1966). But Zoromiskis was featured above Zorach when the museum chose him to receive an anniversary exhibition of paintings in 1993.