Thursday, 5 December 2024, 5 pm Rhythm Variations, an exhibition of paintings by the famous Lithuanian artist Kazis Varnelis (1917-2010), opens at the Beatričė Kleizaitė-Vasaris Art Gallery (P. Butlerienės g. 3, Marijampolė) on Thursday, 5:00 pm. This exhibition is a special event, the result of a collaboration between the Beatričė Kleizaitė-Vasaris Gallery and the National Museum of Lithuania in Vilnius.
Kazys Varnelis is a painter and collector, a representative of Optical and Minimalist painting, who has added a distinctive touch to the narrative of the abstract art of the Western world. His life and work has been a complex journey, just like that of other Lithuanian artists who experienced the fate of an exile after the war. After spending most of his life in the USA, Kazys Varnelis and his wife Gabriele moved to Vilnius in 1998.
Prior to the war, Kazys Varnelis studied decorative painting at the Kaunas School of Art (1936-1941), then studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna (1943-1945), and spent a few years in displaced persons camps in Germany. He decorated churches and was an active member of the World Union of Lithuanian Artists and Architects. In early 1949, Kazys Varnelis had already reached Chicago and started working in a studio for church interiors and design. A couple of years later, he opened a church art studio (1950-1963), creating stained glass windows, altars and Stations of the Cross for churches in Chicago, Putnam and Cleveland. Later, Kazys Varnelis became a lecturer, professor, and participated in important exhibitions. In 1951, the artist painted his first abstract compositions. After creating numerous original op artworks, he held his first solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in 1970, and in 1976 he became a member of the Chicago abstractionist group "Five". His paintings have been exhibited in other important contemporary art centres in the USA.
Kazys Varnelis was an extremely creative and driven personality: his horizons included not only his own vision of painting, but also collecting Lithuanian art objects - old maps, bibliophilic publications, Western and Far Eastern art. He donated all these to Lithuania. Vilnius is currently home to the Kazis Varnelis House-Museum (a division of the National Museum of Lithuania), one of the most impressive museums in Lithuania, which was built by the artist himself.
The exhibition "Rhythmic Variation" features an important part of Kazis Varnelis' oeuvre - Op Art and Minimalist painting. It is based on precision, rhythmic geometric shapes and their repetitions, a two-colour palette and the motif of the cylinder, which is ingeniously repeated in various compositions.
This exhibition is a meaningful reminder of, and a kind of reconnection between, three representatives of the Lithuanian art world - Kazis Varnelis, Albinas Elskas and Beatričė Kleizaitė-Vasaris. They shared a common fate as emigrants. Kazys Varnelis and Albinas Elskus knew and appreciated each other's work. Beatričė Kleizaitė-Vasaris was a lifelong supporter of Lithuanian artists, a collector of expatriate art, and had acquired several projects by Albinas Elskus. They are currently on display in the Albinas Elskaus exhibition at the Kazis Varnelis House-Museum.
