Algimantas Kezys (1928 – February 23, 2015) was a

photographer A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who uses a camera to make photographs. Duties and types of photograp ...

born in

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

who moved to the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

in 1950. Kezys was ordained as a

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

priest in the 1950s; he received a master's degree in philosophy from Loyola University (Chicago) in 1956. He founded the Lithuanian Library Press in Chicago and directed the Lithuanian Youth Center in Chicago between 1974 and 1977. One of Kezys' first major exhibitions took place in 1965 at the

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. The museum is based in the Art Institute of Chicago Building in Chicago's Grant Park (Chicago), Grant Park. Its collection, stewa ...

. Since then his work has been exhibited at a number of American and European museums and in magazines. His photographs are part of the permanent collections at

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum). LACMA was founded in 1961 ...

, the Carnegie Institute in

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

, and at the Art Institute of Chicago. He published several books. In May 2000 he participated in an exhibition held in

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, sponsored by the

International Monetary Fund The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution funded by 191 member countries, with headquarters in Washington, D.C. It is regarded as the global lender of las ...

. Kezys operated a small gallery in

Stickney, Illinois Stickney is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States. Per the 2020 census, the population was 7,110. The village is named for Alpheus Beede Stickney, a railroad executive who played a central role in establishing the Clearing Industria ...

, featuring the art created by Lithuanian artists around the world, and published reviews, catalogs, and books on art, religion, and photography. He died in 2015.

References

Sources

Algimantas Kezys website
(includes gallery).

Lituanus ''Lituanus'' is an English language quarterly journal dedicated to Lithuanian and Baltic languages, linguistics, political science, arts, history, literature, and related topics. It is published by the non-profit Lituanus Foundation, Inc., and ha ...

, Volume 27, No. 1 - Spring 1981.
Algimantas Kezys - A Poet of Photography

, Volume 16, No.3 - Fall 1970.
Chicago-Diverse Architectural Fragments
Exhibition at

Fermilab Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), located in Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a United States Department of Energy United States Department of Energy National Labs, national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle phys ...

, 2002.

Bibliography

*Cityscapes. *Lithuania Through the Wall: Diary of a Ten-Day Visit to My Native Land. *Photographs of

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

. *Nature, Forms and Forces: Photographs from Our National, State, and Local Parks. *Fragments of Being. *Faces of Two Worlds: A Study in Portraits of the Lithuanian Immigrant Experience in the U.S.A. 1928 births 2015 deaths Lithuanian photographers {{lithuania-artist-stub