Exhibitions
The works on display at the Liepāja Museum Collection exhibition feature romantic landscapes of the Latvian countryside with snow-covered building roofs, the winter stillness of snowy forests, the bustling courtyards and streets of cities, and the freezing waters of the harbor canal in the cold of winter.
The exhibition features 19 works by artists – Arturs Baumanis, Arturs Johans Frīdrihs Baumanis, Arvīds Briedis, Ēriks Caune, Nora Drapče, Visvaldis Garokalns, K. Gryean, Jānis Jaunsudrabiņš, Aldis Kļaviņš, Jānis Lauva, Pēteris Postažs, Roberts Stārosts, Jānis Sudmalis, Otto Tiliņš, Valters Uzticis, Edgars Vārdaunis, Matīss Zavickis, Visvaldis Ziediņš and Jānis Rūdolfs Zuntaks – works.
Most artists represented in the exhibition were born in Liepāja or have lived and worked in Liepāja.
The most widely represented artists are Jānis Sudmalis, Otto Tiliņš and Aldis Kļaviņš. Jānis Sudmalis, who is the creator of the Liepāja Museum, together with Arturs Baumanis, studied at the Baron Stieglitz Central School of Technical Drawing in St. Petersburg. After the First World War, both artists connected their lives with Liepāja. Both were teachers at the Liepāja Art School. Arturs was also a theatre decorator, while Jānis devoted his entire life to the museum's creation and operation while painting simultaneously.
The paintings of Otto Tiliņš, an artist and resident of Liepaja, depict turbulent, windy winter landscapes.
On the other hand, Aldis Kļaviņš, a painter and Art professor, was born in Madona. Still, after graduating from the Art Academy of Latvia, his life was connected with Liepāja, Liepāja Theatre, Liepāja Art High School, Liepāja University. In the spring of 2023, the Liepāja Museum hosted Aldis Kļaviņš first photo exhibition, “Snapshots from the Stroll Diary.”
The master of landscape painting Jānis Rūdolfs Zuntaks, watercolorist Ēriks Caune, and Grobiņa resident Roberts Stārosts studied at Liepāja Art High School and continued their education at the Art Academy of Latvia.
The exhibition also includes watercolors created with a light brushstroke by teacher and scenographer Valters Uzticis. Jānis Lauva, the author of the Liepāja harbor painted in an academic manner, and Matīss Zavickis, the author of the view of Vītolu Street, both graduated from the Ģederts Eliass Figural Painting Master's Workshop of the Latvian Academy of Arts and both worked as teachers at the Liepāja Applied Art Secondary School.
The Winter by Edgars Vārdaunis, who graduated from the Latvian Art Academy’s Vilhelms Purvītis Master Class in Naturalistic Scenery Painting in 1936, came to the Liepāja Museum after the Latvian Chamber of Letters and Art’s traveling exhibition of fine art in February 1940.
The painting with a title “Blizzard” by the contemporary and expressive “nonconformist” Visvaldis Ziediņš, pained in 1963, the Liepāja Museum obtained in 2020. The artworks of this author were only brought to the attention of a broader public in 2012, five years after his death.
The exhibition also includes the 1963 work “Fishing Boats in Winter” by the painter Visvaldis Garokalns. Seven watercolors by Visvaldis Garokalns are in the Liepāja Museum’s collection. In the 1960s, the artist worked at the Liepāja Museum and the Liepāja Art School.
Arvīds Briedis studied at the Art Academy of Latvia, but after graduating from the Latvian Drama Course, he became more involved with theatre.
The painting “The First Snow” by Pēteris Postažs, a professor at the Art Academy of Latvia, is one of the thirty-five paintings the artist presented to the Liepāja Museum on 18 March 2000 after his solo exhibition.
The small winter landscapes by Jānis Jaunsudrabiņš, K. Gryean, Arturs Johans Frīdrihs Baumanis, and Nora Drapče resemble the motifs of Christmas greeting cards. Born in Latgale, Nora Drapče lived in Liepāja during interwar and worked as a teacher at the Liepāja Art School. In 1943, she had a solo exhibition at the Liepāja Museum, but in 1944, she emigrated from Latvia.
Entrance fee: adults EUR 1.50, pupils, students, and senior citizens EUR 1.00.
