Vilnius, 15 September 2014. The wonderful cooperation between the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum, the Lithuanian Expatriate Art Foundation, and the Lewben Art Foundation continues, with the organisation of the exhibition of paintings and sculptures Colours and Forms of France by Litvak artists. The museum foundation will be enriched with three of Max Band’s (1900–1974) paintings a representative of the L‘Ecole de Paris. The Lithuanian Expatriate Art Foundation has donated three paintings by Max Band: Portrait of George Tobias, Schoolboy, and Still life with Fruits.
Max Band was born in 1900 in Naujamiestis, Šakiai district. He came to international recognition when he lived in Paris and in the United States. In the US, Band painted the portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt. He studied art in Berlin in 1920–1923 and from 1930 until the beginning of WWII he lived and worked in Paris. His workshop was at La Ruche (Hive). Many Litvak artists who later attained worldwide fame started their careers there: Emmanuel Mané-Katz, Jacques Lipchitz, Marc Chagall, Michel Kikoïnes, Neemiya Arbit Blatt, Pinchus Krémègne, and others. Band held solo exhibitions of his works in Amsterdam, Berlin, Kaunas and New York. He moved to the United States during WWII and died on 18 December 1974 in Hollywood, California. Throughout his career Band remained loyal to his favourite sky-blue and greenish colours, which were characteristic of his works. The traumatic experience of his early life – the painter lost both of his parents at an early age – was reflected in Band’s works, which were marked by melancholic French expressionism and a spirit of elegance.
According to Ugnė Bužinskaitė, director of the Lithuanian Expatriate Art Foundation, it was due to the initiative of the foundation that the paintings of the Lithuanian expatriate were returned to his homeland several years ago: “We are donating the works of one of the most remarkable Litvak painters to the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum and hope that their true meaning will be better uncovered in the museum’s collection, among the paintings by other Litvak painters. We also hope that the public will have the opportunity to get to know these works of Band in the near future in an exposition by the Litvak Culture and Art Centre to be opened by the Vilnia Gaon State Jewish Museum”.
At present the works of Max Band are exhibited at the Tolerance Centre of the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum (Naugarduko g. 10/2, Vilnius, www.jmuseum.lt), together with works of other outstanding Litvak artists. The exhibition is called Colours and Forms of France. The last day of the exhibition is Sunday 28 September.
Curators of the exhibition: Ieva Šadzevičienė, Ugnė Bužinskaitė. Organisers: The Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum, Lewben Art Foundation, the Lithuanian Expatriate Art Foundation. Partner: French Institute (Institut Francais) in Lithuania. Sponsors: Lewben Group, Enercom Capital, artnews.lt.
For more information: Ieva Šadzevičienė, Head of the Tolerance Centre at VGSJM E-mail: ieva.sadzeviciene@jmuseum.lt, tel. +370 5 262 9666
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