Kazys Šimonis (25 August 1887 – 5 July 1978) was a

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 ...

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

thumb The thumb is the first digit of the hand, next to the index finger. When a person is standing in the medical anatomical position (where the palm is facing to the front), the thumb is the outermost digit. The Medical Latin English noun for thumb ...

Biography

Kazys Šimonis was born on August 25, 1887, in , near Kupiškis, northern Lithuania. He studied organs. He was also interested in history and ethnography. In 1909–1911, he went to work for his brother in the United States. In 1911, he returned to Lithuania, and was called up for military service in the

Imperial Russian Army The Imperial Russian Army () was the army of the Russian Empire, active from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was organized into a standing army and a state militia. The standing army consisted of Regular army, regular troops and ...

. He painted and studied episodically with Tadas Daugirdas (1908–1910), local painters while serving in the army in

Kiev Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

(1911–1917), and Fedosejevo during evening drawing courses (1917–1918) in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

. In 1919, he settled in

Kaunas Kaunas (; ) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius, the fourth largest List of cities in the Baltic states by population, city in the Baltic States and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaun ...

and actively participated in the Lithuanian cultural life. In 1919–1924, he taught drawing and penmanship at Kaunas Aušra high school, along with teacher training courses. In 1920–1921, he attended the private art school of

Adomas Varnas Adomas Varnas (January 1, 1879, in Joniškis, Lithuania – July 19, 1979, in Chicago, United States) was a prominent Lithuanian Painting, painter, photographer, collector, philanthropist, and educator. Author of the world first album of ethnogr ...

. In 1923, he studied art in Berlin. In 1923 and 1924, he taught drawing at teacher courses organized by Juozas Damijonaitis. In 1926, he received a two-year grant to study in Paris at the Ministry of Education. In 1934–1945, he worked at the Kaunas School of Art (since 1941, Kaunas Applied and Decorative Art Institute) as the library manager. In 1945–1950, he was director of the museum of the Kaunas Applied and Decorative Arts Institute. In 1951–1959, he worked as a technician at the architecture department of Kaunas Polytechnic Institute. He died at the age of 91, and was buried in

Petrašiūnai Cemetery Petrašiūnai Cemetery () is Lithuania's premiere last resting place formally designated for graves of people influential in national history, politics, arts, and science. Location Petrašiūnai Cemetery is located about south-east of the cent ...

in Kaunas.

Awards

* 1962: Honored Artist of the

Lithuanian SSR The Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic (Lithuanian SSR; ; ), also known as Soviet Lithuania or simply Lithuania, was '' de facto'' one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union between 1940–1941 and 1944–1990. After 1946, its terr ...

* 1972: People's Artistof the Lithuanian SSR

Works

Šimonis created about 2,000 works of art –

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes th ...

portrait A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face is always predominant. In arts, a portrait may be represented as half body and even full body. If the subject in full body better r ...

s, fantasy paintings, as well as ex-libris,

poster A poster is a large sheet that is placed either on a public space to promote something or on a wall as decoration. Typically, posters include both typography, textual and graphic elements, although a poster may be either wholly graphical or w ...

s, proposals for postage stamps, and decorative panels in

Birštonas Birštonas (, ) is a balneological resort and a spa town in Lithuania situated south of Kaunas on the right bank of the Nemunas River. Birštonas received its town rights 1529 and was appointed a town in 1966. The town is the administrative ce ...

(1938). He collected and painted folk art, architectural monuments. His individual exhibitions were held in 1925, 1926, 1927, 1929, 1949, 1958, 1967, 1972, 1977 in Kaunas, 1925 in Washington, D.C., Boston, Chicago, 1926 in

Riga Riga ( ) is the capital, Primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Latvia, largest city of Latvia. Home to 591,882 inhabitants (as of 2025), the city accounts for a third of Latvia's total population. The population of Riga Planni ...

, 1927 in

Klaipėda Klaipėda ( ; ) is a city in Lithuania on the Baltic Sea coast. It is the List of cities in Lithuania, third-largest city in Lithuania, the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, fifth-largest city in the Baltic States, and the capi ...

and Paris, 1968 and 1975 in

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...

. He published his memoirs ''Gyvenimo nuotrupos'' (Fragments of Life) in 1959. He developed his own interpretation of the prevailing artistic movements:

cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement which began in Paris. It revolutionized painting and the visual arts, and sparked artistic innovations in music, ballet, literature, and architecture. Cubist subjects are analyzed, broke ...

expressionism Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

rayonism Rayonism (or Rayism or Rayonnism) was a style of abstract art that developed in Russia in 1910–1914. Founded and named by Russian Cubo-Futurists Mikhail Larionov and Natalia Goncharova, it was one of Russia's first abstract art movements. B ...

. In the early creative period, Šimonis was influenced by

M. K. Čiurlionis M, or m, is the thirteenth letter of the English alphabet. M may also refer to: Companies and products * M (fragrance), a 2008 fragrance by Mariah Carey * M-series rangefinder, a series of List of Leica Camera models#M-series rangefinder, Leic ...

. Later, when he learned of the Western European art, he was significantly influenced by German expressionist and

Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the , was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined Decorative arts, crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., ...

school of art, and especially by

Lyonel Feininger Lyonel Charles Adrian Feininger (; July 17, 1871January 13, 1956) was a German-American painter, and a leading exponent of Expressionism. He also worked as a caricaturist and comic strip artist. He was born and grew up in New York City. In 1887 h ...

and his beams of light that were stylized, falling in many different directions, and forming fantastic images. When he lived in France, he was influenced by

primitivism In the arts of the Western world, Primitivism is a mode of aesthetic idealization that means to recreate the experience of ''the primitive'' time, place, and person, either by emulation or by re-creation. In Western philosophy, Primitivism propo ...

. His mature creative period started in mid 1920s and lasted the end of 1930s. During this period, his works exhibit the growing tendency to divide things and space into geometric segments. The artist paid particular attention to light which divided geometric segments into small crystals. After World War II, his creativity started to fade and he returned to earlier themes. Sadness and recollections start appearing in his stylized fantasy works. During this period, he created more realistic landscapes and scenes of nature. He was criticized for imitation. Notable works: "Foliage" (1923), "Towers" (1928), "Fantasy", "Thirst" (1926), "Forest Fire", "Princess", "Composition", "Lights" (1926), "In Fog" (1927), "Fantasy Landscape" (1930), "Candles" (1931), "Living Stones" (1935), "Landscape with Wayside Shrine", "Girl with Flowers" (1936), "Into The Space" (1958), "Breaking Morning" (1968). He also painted portraits of actors Ona Rymaitė, Unė Babickaitė, Teofilija Vaičiūnienė, writers

Vydūnas Wilhelm Storost, artistic name Vilius Storostas-Vydūnas (22 March 1868 – 20 February 1953), mostly known as Vydūnas, was a Prussian-Lithuanian teacher, poet, humanist, philosopher and Lithuanian writer, a leader of the Prussian Lithuani ...

, Vincas Mykolaitis-Putinas,

Vincas Krėvė-Mickevičius Vincas Mickevičius (pl. ''Wincenty Mickiewicz'', October 19, 1882 – July 17, 1954), better known by his pen name Vincas Krėvė-Mickevičius, was a Lithuanian writer, poet, novelist, playwright and philologist. He is also known as Vincas Krėv� ...

, Juozas Tysliava, Liudas Gira,

Kazys Binkis Kazys Binkis (16 November 1893 – 27 April 1942) was a Lithuanian poet, journalist, and playwright. Biography Kazys Binkis was born on 16 November 1893 in the village of Gudeliai in Biržai District Municipality. He attended primary school at ...

, historian Simonas Daukantas, artist

, and others.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Simonis, Kaz 1887 births 1978 deaths People from Kupiškis District Municipality People from Vilkomirsky Uyezd 20th-century Lithuanian painters Burials at Petrašiūnai Cemetery

Biography

Awards

Works

See also

References