The Inner Light of Humane Art: Jewish Heritage of Lithuania

Part VI

Encyclopedic approach to exhibiting Jewish heritage in Lithuania

A special exhibition commemorating the 100th anniversary of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research at the Vilnius Picture Gallery, part of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art, has become the first one in the world celebrating the centenarian mark of this unique institution. The curators of the exhibition opted for a wide and synthetic approach, setting in their halls a journey for their visitors throughout the five centuries of the extremely rich legacy of the Lithuanian Jews. 

At the YIVO commemorating exhibition, Vilnius Picture Gallery. (C). Gintare Grigenaite. LDNM. With permission.

That journey includes ritual objects, rare books and manuscripts, telling mementos from a Jewish daily life, historical art and documents, sculpture, original documents, including the Chagall and his family correspondence with YIVO, and original art which is represented in a warm selection of works from very rich collections of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art, their partners, two significant private collections in Lithuania, and  great YIVO collection in New York. 

Warmth-spot from two private collections 

Four works from two private collections, together with the works from the Lithuanian National Museum of Art collection, has created a particularly warm spot in the middle of the encyclopaedic in character exhibition. All four works were selected well by the curatorial team of the Vilnius Picture Gallery, and they brought a sense of palpable authenticity to the visual narrative of the exhibition. 

The two private collections are very well known both in Lithuania and internationally. One is The Lithuanian Art Centre TARTLE, one of the largest private art collections and art centres in Lithuania, belonging to a well-known lawyer and philanthropist Rolandas Valiunas, and another is the Lithuanian Art Collection and Fund of  Dr Jaunius Gumbis, who is also a well-known philanthropist and a philosopher of a law. 

Original art at the YIVO commemorative exhibition at the Vilnius Picture Gallery. (C) Gintare Grigenaite. LDMN. With permission,

Both men, who are colleagues and partners in business, are not only avid art collectors, but also top intellectuals and very well versed historians who are keen to know everything of every single piece in their both worthy collections, and who are quite open and willing to share their art treasures and history behind it with the public. 

There is also a special feature in both Lithuanian most notable private art collections. Both the Tartle Art Centre  of Rolandas Valiunas and Lithuanian Art Collection of Jaunius Gumbis are dedicated to Lithuanian art, and both of them include either works of Litvak masters, or works of the other well-known artists on a variety of  Jewish themes. This state of things reflects the tissue of Lithuanian history, in which Jewish heritage and legacy have been the organic part of it for more than seven centuries, from the 14th century onward. Notably, Jewish heritage in Lithuania and from Lithuania in many aspects of human activities was so developed that it has become an international phenomenon.

Interestingly, one of their recent achievements of the Tartle Art Centre was their exhibition and superb art catalogue dedicated to the Stories of Litvak Art  ( 2023). They also participated in a meaningful way in the landmark, first in over 80 years exhibition of the Litvak art in Lithuania and Baltic countries which I had analysed at the time. 

For the current exhibition, celebrating YIVO at the Vilnius Picture Gallery, the curators choose two artworks from the Tartle art collection, a well-known and highly representative of Litvak art Jewish Boy portrait by Josef Budko, and masterly Kazimierz Mordasewicz drawing Portrait of a Jew. 

Portrait of a Jewish Boy was created by Josef Budko in 1927 in Berlin, where he spent as long as 24 years, a half of his not long life. Unless the Nazis would get the power, Budko would never leave Berlin. He was working very productively there, always within the context of Jewish themes, being a very well-known illustrator of various Jewish books, including Psalms, Talmud, Jewish history, and was working closely with such leading Jewish writers as Nahum Bjalik, whose three volumes of poetry Budko illustrated in the 1920s in Berlin.  

Josef Budko. Portrait of a Jewish Boy. Oil on canvas. 1927. The Tartle Art Collection and Centre. (C) Inna Rogatchi

He was a master draughtsman and an authority in engraving, etching and woodcuts. All these skills Budko developed under mentorship of the great Hermann Struck, who was also the teacher of Chagall and many others in Berlin. 

Josef Budko was born in Plonsk in Poland at the end of the 19th century. Being just 14, he managed to get from home to Vilnius, to study at the famous Vilnius Drawing School there, where most of the Litvak artists studied at different time, including mighty Jewish artist Boris Schatz who would establish the Bezalel Academy of Arts  in Palestine, the first ever institution of the kind  in the entire Middle-East. 

The inter-connections of the Litvak artists through their lives is a special phenomenon in the history of art. When Boris Schatz went on a desperate fund-raising mission for the struggling financially Bezalel Academy to the United States in 1932, and died there, with the mission interrupted, Josef Budko came to Palestine from Berlin, becoming the second Bezalel director after Schatz. The School of Arts in Palestine began to flourish at the period, even if due to the tragic reason, as so many Jewish artists flew Berlin and Germany together or soon after Budko , for the same reason. 

The well-known Budko’s portrait of a Jewish youth painted in 1927 expresses fully that very common for all Litvak artists who found themselves scattered all over the world, deep inner love for cradle of their being and their art, that special deeply emotional memory that they were able and willing to transform on their canvases. 

The other work from the Tartle collection at the exhibition is a very good portrait of a Jewish man, a dignified pencil drawing by a well-known in his time classic Polish artist and famed portraits Kazimierz Mordashewisz, who was known internationally, travelled all over Europe, and is the author of a much appreciated portraits of many famous people of his time, including Polish writer Henryck Sienkiewiecz and French President Poincare.  

Kazimierz Mordashewisz. Portrait of a Jew. Pencil on paper. The Tartle Art Collection. (C) Inna Rogatchi.

There are also two works which have been selected from the Jaunius Gumbis collection of Lithuanian Art, Portrait of an Old Jew by a well-known Polish Lithuanian artist Wincenty Smokowski, and The Seamstress by another well-known artist of the 19th century Jan Moraczynski. 

There are several works of Smokowski at the exhibition at the Vilnius Picture Gallery, and with good reason. His presence at the culture and public scene in Lithuania, Poland and the Russian Empire in the first half of the 19th century was very visible. He, who also was a practising doctor, very popular teacher of arts, and a widely respected figure in general, with a wide spectrum of activities and achievements, contributed a lot into causes which would stay, including advising and supervising the restoration and  preservation of important frescoes at the Trakai Castle in Lithuania, one of the country’s best known historical monuments till this day. 

Wincenty Smokowski. Portrait of an Old Jew. Oil on canvas. 1870. The Dr Jaunius Gumbis Collection of Lithuanian Art. (C) Inna Rogatchi

The other interesting work from the Gumbis collection at the exhibition, The Seamstress by Jan Moraczynski is a very good small work on a wood panel in a post-Rembrandt style  by the well-known portraitist of the 19th century.

Jan. Moraszynsky. The Seamstress. Oil on wood. 1850. The Dr Jaunius Gumbis Collection of Lithuanian Art. (C) Inna Rogatchi

This work is a recent acquisition by Jaunius Gumbis,  as he told me. “ The work was painted by Moraczynski in Vienna, then it found its way to Rome via Stockholm, as we can tell from the stamp on its frame, which I prefer to keep in its authentic form.  We know that Moraczynsky was interested in theology and the ways to express artistically the inner feelings and concentration of people. The Seamstress, or Jewish Woman Threading a Needle , is definitely one of his strong and successful efforts in that direction” – explained Jaunius Gumbis. 

Hermann Struck , the teacher of Chagall and many others

A very special place at the exhibition is justly taken by several works of Hermann Struck, an extraordinary Jewish artist, born in Berlin and living there for almost a half of a century. The  treasure of Struck drawings was brought to Vilnius from New York, where it is part of the unique YIVO collection and archive. The selection at the exhibition in Vilnius is meaningful both  artistically and  historically. 

Hermann Struck had such a talent that once you are lucky to see his works live, they are staying with you in a highly articulated message of inter-connection. He had an amazing ability to express people’s emotions and inner world in the finest way. His  art is both masterly and soulful, which is not always the case, with Dali being the best sample of it. Struck really is one of the best masters of the first half of the 20th century. 

Struck’s characters in his small portraits exhibited in Vilnius are as if speaking with you directly, his Jewish boys, women, his elderly. This part is one of the strongest magnets among many exhibits on display in Vilnius. 

Selection of Hermann Struck works at the YIVO commemorating exhibition in Vilnius. YIVO Collection. (C) Gintare Grigenaite. LDNM. With permission.

Struck himself was a willing student of Jozef Israelis, the leading Dutch artist of the second part of the 19th century, whose works were absolutely admired by van Gogh. Struck has become such an authority in etching that his book on it, The Art of Etching, published in the early 20th century by the great Paul Cassirer, the same outstanding art dealer and art visionary who brought van Gogh to public in the first place and ensured his name for posterity, was the most authoritative source on it for decades to come. 

Cover of Hermann Struck famous The Art of Etching book. The 1920s, Berlin. (C) Inna Rogatchi

There was not a single important public or culture figure at the beginning of the 20th century, internationally, who was not being portrayed by Hermann Struck. The gallery of such portraits comes from  Hertzl, Freund and Einstein to Wild, Ibsen and many others. It was regarded as both an honor and a must thing to have their portrait made by Struck for those most famous people a century ago.

Albert Einstein was so impressed by his portraits made by Hermann Struck that he ordered several copies of one of it, proudly sending it as his gift to his friends. I am not surprised. There are at least five different known Einstein’s portraits by Struck, proving how much he valued Einstein. I chose the splendid one, as if directly from the Dutch School, which is not surprising for the diligent student of Jozef Israelis. 

Hermann Struck. Portrait of Albert Einstein. 1931. Photo (C) Inna Rogatchi

Among those people portrayed by the great artist was also Menachem Ussishkin, a legendary, instrumentally important pioneer of the return of Jewish life to Palestine, and my great-uncle. 

Hermann Struck. Portrait of Menachem Ussishkin.  Photo (C) Inna Rogatchi

Importantly, Hermann Struck was wholeheartedly devoted to his Jewish origin and Jewish cause, and he was a very important, visible and active figure among the  leadership of international Jewry. He signed his works on any theme with an image of  Magen David, and interestingly, in his appearance was resembling Theodor Herzl to the substantial degree. 

Hermann Struck. 1912. (C) Leo Baeck Institute Archive. With kind permission.

Hermann Struck was a fundamentally important teacher for Marc Chagall and many other outstanding and great artists, who were living for some while in Berlin in the beginning of the 20th century. It was the same Paul Cassirer who introduced young Chagall to Struck, and who asked the master of etching and many other techniques to teach some of it to that young promising talent from Vitebsk. 

Hermann Struck. Portrait of Marc Chagall. 1922. Photo (C) Inna Rogatchi

Not quite usually, Hermann Struck, additionally to being an outstanding artist, was  the man of important public duties. To mention just one of many of Struck’s roles during his pretty eventful life, he was the person responsible for the matter of Jewish Affairs at the Treaty of Versaille. 

Loving Eretz Israel deeply, and experiencing the post- Great War havoc first-hand, Struck decided to emigrate to Palestine in 1922, being 56-year old. He would live there for the last third of his life, while visiting his native Berlin annually until 1933. He was also able to save at least 50 Jewish kids from Austria, Czechoslovakia and Germany just in time, in 1939. He had that incredible sense of prioritised necessities all his life, and importantly, was able to do something decisive about it.

Hermann Struck was teaching at the Bezalel Academy of Arts ,and he helped to establish the now famous Tel-Aviv Museum of Art. His own museum is situated in his former home in Haifa and it is one of the art and culture treasures of Israel today. 

Hermann Struck works at the YIVO commemorating exhibition in Vilnius. YIVO collection. (C) Gintare Grigenaite. LDNM. With permission.

Bringing such  special and warming top-quality original art to the exhibition commemorating the 100th anniversary of YIVO Institute in Vilnius, the Vilnius Picture Gallery team contributed to telling the rich, versatile and dramatic story in a way of caring, with attention and kindness. Anyone interested in Jewish history who would be visiting the exhibition at the Vilnius Picture Gallery, will leave the palace in the centre of Vilnius being warmed up, full of thoughts, and with a real appreciation. And  also, with some unique images which would stay in one’ s memory for a long time. 

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 Previous parts of this reviewing essay series: 

Part I – General View and the Concept –  https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/re-creating-the-path-of-remembrance-yivo-celebration-in-vilnius/

Part II – Artefacts and Documents – https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/spiral-of-time-retrospective-of-yiddish-heritage-in-vilnius/

 Part III – Rare Book and Manuscripts – https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-letters-of-time-lives-and-spirit/

Part IV – When Art is a History Marker: Historical Art and Rare Sculpture at the YIVO commemorative exhibition in Vilnius –  https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/when-art-is-a-history-marker-yivo-commemorative-exhibition-in-vilnius/

Part V – WHEN An ARTLINE IS A LIFE-THREAD. Original Litvak art at the YIVO commemorating exhibition in Vilnius I –https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/when-art-line-is-a-life-thread-new-exhibition-in-vilnius/

March – April 2025, Vilnius

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