February 4 of this year. one of the most significant Lithuanian poets of all time, Sigitus Geda, turned 80 years old. On this occasion, we invite you to visit the exhibition Piešiniai Gedai of the drawings of the graphic designer Petros Repšis, created especially for S. Geda's poetry collections.

P. Repšys illustrated four books of S. Geda's poetry - Thrush (1967), Sleeping Horses (1970), Green Amber Necklaces (1988) and Skrynelė dvsiaoms paugauti (1998). It is the pencil, charcoal, and ink drawings of the last two books, in which Sigitas Geda, his father, house, homestead, visited places, rooms with things are exhibited in the exhibition. More than 30 works.

Petr Repšys...

We met Sigit Geda around 1966-67. We were introduced by Tomas Venclova. He told Sigit that we need to get to know each other because we will have something to talk about. Sigit was a scholar and I often visited him in the dormitory. We talked a lot, we were young and we chatted all the time. He wanted me to illustrate his Thrush. We drove around the places where the Thrush lived, thinking that we would put our foot in the place where the Thrush's foot was. We didn't put anything in, we took a walk, looked around, but it was useful - the scenery, that place. Before going to the forest, S. Geda would clean his shoes with shoe polish and wipe his nose with a handkerchief. I was impressed by it. He was a very nice person.

I made all the sketches, but on the way back from Moscow, my bag with all the sketches was stolen on the train, along with some very good chisels for carving. They were very sorry. I restored everything when I came back. But maybe it's a good thing that they were stolen from me, because in the beginning I would have done etchings, but later I realized that I wanted rougher lines and I chose linen carving. So, I made those linen carvings and we published Strazda. This was the first book. The second book was Sleeping Horses. They both received prizes both in Moscow and Vilnius. It was very important then. I hoped that after these books I would get a job in a publishing house, but it didn't and I gave up illustrating books for a long time. And my young son Ignas, when he was still a little boy, used to tell me that when I read a book without drawings, I imagine everything, but if it's a book with drawings, I can't imagine it anymore, because it's shown how it should be. A very good observation here. Man has no room for imagination, he loses the opportunity to create himself. So, I didn't get any other jobs and it's very good that it happened. Because I was doing other pieces, I was painting a mural, which was very interesting to me because I hadn't done that.

Only many years later, Sigis again offered me to illustrate two of his poetry books. He gave me poems to read, there were quite a few of them. I didn't want to illustrate anything and I started thinking about what to do. After all, both books of poetry are not integral works, it is not the poem Thrush, but individual poems. I didn't want to ignore grasshoppers and flowers. It would look stupid. I've always liked his poetry, but I didn't want to illustrate that book. And quite a few years have passed since the last book. But I kept thinking about what I could create based on those verses, I wanted something new that hadn't been done before. I read the verses, but my hands are empty, I don't know what to do. I continue to read and understand that all this was written by Sigitas. That's how I started to look after him. In my room, in his rooms, we went to his father's house, I drove his father, then we went to Liškiava, where he had bought a house. I followed him everywhere. There were quite a lot of drawings, but I didn't like some of them and didn't save them.

When I got the second book, after a hundred pipes, I didn't know what to do anymore. I decided to look not for him, but for the places where he used to be and his belongings. We started driving again to his home, the apartment, where he used to walk with his dog. There are very few drawings in the book. If they wanted to put them all together, they wouldn't fit because there were so many of them. So, in one book there is a person, and in the other - the places where he used to be.

Everything I did was fine with him, he didn't interfere at all. I must say there was an amazing poser. Whether it was standing or lying in the meadow, it was like a statue, it didn't move until I drew it.