Vincas Kisarauskas

Artist (painter, graphic artist, sculptor, and stage designer) and art historian. Born on 1 March 1934 in Augmėnai (Radviliškis District). Died in New York in 1988 and was buried in Vilnius.

In 1959, he graduated from the Lithuanian Art Institute. From 1965, he taught at the M. K. Čiurlionis School of Arts in Vilnius. During the Soviet period, works by V. Kisarauskas were rarely accepted for exhibitions; when they were, they were usually small-format graphic works, particularly bookplates (ex-libris). Kisarauskas first drew the disapproval of the Soviet authorities while still a student. In 1956, he took part in an All Souls’ Day demonstration at Rasos Cemetery protesting Soviet actions in Hungary. Following this event, the young artist came under KGB surveillance.

Nevertheless, Kisarauskas refused to compromise his artistic vision and boldly pursued experimentation. He was the first artist in Lithuania to combine painting with photographs and various objects, creating assemblages. This art form had become popular among Pop Art artists working in the West. Kisarauskas, however, enriched it with an element uncommon in Western Pop Art: figures carved or cut from wood.

In his work, the artist explored existential questions and developed themes drawn from antiquity, the Bible, history, and classical literature. His works are characterized by dramatic tension and a strong sense of construction. His compositions tend to be static, structured around contrasts between horizontal and vertical elements, space and form. His forms are generalized and expressively distorted, often stereometric, while his colours are vivid and contrasting. One of the most distinctive qualities of his art is his ability to combine structural rigour with powerful emotional expression, bringing vitality and intrigue to rationally constructed compositions.

Because of his bold artistic style and nonconformist stance, V. Kisarauskas is regarded as one of the most important Lithuanian artists of the 1960s and 1970s.