Old Vilnius Motif

Antanas Gudaitis was a painter, set designer, graphic artist and teacher. He was born on 29 July 1904 in Šiauliai. He studied painting at Kaunas School of Art from 1926 to 1929, under Justinas Vienožinskis, and Lithuanian and Russian literature at the Faculty of Humanities of Kaunas University. Between 1929 and 1933 he studied at the Paris State Higher School of Decorative and Applied Arts, and attended the private Académie Julian, the Académie Colarossi and the Académie Lhote. He began to participate in exhibitions in 1930, and was a member of the Ars group (1932–1935). When he returned to Kaunas in 1933, he began to teach the rudiments of art on decorators’ courses, and from 1938 to 1940 he gave courses for schoolteachers of handicrafts. Gudaitis was one of the founders of the Lithuanian Artists’ Association in 1935. In 1940 and 1941, he ran a painting studio at Vilnius School of Art, and from 1941 to 1943 he taught at Vilnius Academy of Art, and was head of the Drawing Department. From 1945 to 1949, he was deputy director for research and studies, and a professor (1947). He continued to work at the academy (later known as the State Art Institute of Lithuania) until 1985. Gudaitis was a teacher to many Lithuanian painters, and helped to establish the fundamentals of colourist painting. Text author Nijolė Tumėnienė.