ELENA KNIŪKŠTAITĖ: EXHIBITION OF NEW PAINTINGS

Originally from Samogitia, E. Kniūkštaitė came to live and work in Rumšiškės almost 50 years ago, and stayed here forever. Today, we are proud of the author’s universal recognition, the museum has a solid collection of selected works by the author, and we are pleased with the bright and memorable exhibitions of the artist that have been organized in the museum. And we are especially pleased that we can present the newest, never before exhibited works of E. Kniūkštaitė to museum visitors at the Aristavėlė Manor.

The latest works are easily recognizable by the artist’s distinctive drawing style, but they are especially painterly mature, colorfully condensed, large-format landscapes that attract the eye with magical lighting.

E. Kniūkštaitė’s paintings do not need to be introduced, we can only remind that she is an author whose work was included in the World Encyclopedia of Naive Art in 1984, her paintings have been exhibited in group exhibitions in many countries of the world, and exceptional personal exhibitions were held in 2010 at the Kaunas Picture and 2011 at the Vilnius Picture Galleries, two albums of the artist’s work have been published and in 2010 she was awarded the title of “The Most Memorable Kaunas Artist 2010”.

2020 was a special year for E. Kniūkštaitė: her creative path was crowned by an anniversary exhibition held at the Aristavėlė Manor, a television show was created to reveal the artist’s personality and she was awarded the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture Prize for the Fostering and Dissemination of Traditional Culture. The artist deserved this award for her long-term hard work as a restorer at the museum and for her many years of creative work since 1974, when she made her debut as an artist at the Republican Folk Art Exhibition in Vilnius.

After a very busy year in 2020, there was a short pause in the artist’s exhibition (but not creative) activities. However, it was a very productive creative period, preparing for future exhibitions, and we can see its results now. We sincerely rejoice in Elena’s new works and wish the author an even more abundant creative harvest!

2020 m. the museum had only 2 works by the artist, one of which, “The Holy Virgin Mary with the Child”, was specially painted for the high altar of the church in the museum town in 2011, and today it is proud to have amassed an excellent collection of selected and catalogue paintings by E. Kniūkštaitė – there are 27 of them!