Painter, sculptor and stage designer, of Lithuanian Jewish origin. The only Lithuanian-born member of the Paris School to achieve worldwide fame. His wife was the New York opera singer Regina Resnik (1922-2013).
A. Blatas was the only child of a musical instrument dealer. In 1917, he learnt to draw in a children's home in Poltava, where the Arbitblat family was sheltered with Jewish refugees for seven years during World War I. When the family returned to Lithuania, he attended the Kaunas Jewish Realistic Gymnasium, where the art teacher was the interwar Lithuanian Jewish artist, a graduate of the Vilnius School of Art, painter and graphic artist Jokūbas Mesenblium, as well as private lessons with Justinas Vienožinskis.From 1924 to 1926, he studied painting in Berlin, Dresden, and from 1926 to 1932, in Paris. From 1940 he lived in New York. In 1941, he accepted US citizenship.
A true figure of the world's cultural aristocracy, the artist was proud of his Lithuanian origin and never forgot the Lithuanian language. In 1975 and 1988, Blat visited Lithuania together with his wife.
He painted landscapes ("Landscape with a Shanty" 1927, "Bridge over the Seine" 1934), portraits ("Old Jew" 1927, "Jonas Vaičius" 1930,
The early works were impressionistic, psychological, calm in colour, while the later ones were painted in an expressionistic manner, characterised by emotional suggestiveness, capturing the mood of the moment, rich colouring, and the originality of forms. Since 1924, he has participated in exhibitions and held solo exhibitions in Paris, Luxembourg, New York and Riga.
Arbitblat's works are in the National Museum of Art of M. K. Čiurlionis in Kaunas, the Museums of Modern Art in Paris and New York, as well as in museums in Lausanne, Tel-Aviv, Jerusalem, and in other cities around the world.
In 2011 and 2013, the artist's family donated art and sculpture works by A. Blat to Lithuania. In 2011, the National Gallery of Art hosted an exhibition of paintings and sculptures from part of the donated collection, "Arbit Blat. A Return to the Homeland". Blatas's family decided to rewrite the will and transfer all the works left in Blatas's New York apartment and studio to the Lithuanian State free of charge.
