Albinas Elskus (Bielskis) | Ships and Figures, II, 1953 | Watercolor, paper, 31x47 (48x64)

Mounted with museum glass.
Museum author. In Lithuania, works are held by LNDM, NČDM

Albinas Bielskis-Elskus (August 21, 1926, Kaunas – February 8, 2007, New York, USA) was a world-renowned stained glass artist, painter, and educator. From 1942 to 1944, he studied at the Kaunas Institute of Applied and Decorative Arts in Stasys Ušinskas' studio. He fled to Germany from 1945 to 1947 and studied architecture at the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences. This knowledge later proved invaluable to him as a stained glass artist. From 1947 to 1949, he studied painting at the School of Arts and Crafts (École des Arts et Métiers) in Freiburg. He lived in the USA from 1949 onwards. He studied in Karl Hacker's stained glass studio in Chicago. From 1952 to 1953, he attended a lithography course at the School of Fine Arts (École des Beaux-Arts) in Paris. From 1953 to 1980, he worked at the Georg Durham Stained Glass Studio in New York. From 1973 to 1984, he taught at Fordham University in the Bronx, New York State, and from 1982 to 1990 at the Parsons School of Design in New York. He was the chairman of the New York Lithuanian Artists' Association from 1972. In 2006, the documentary film "Divine Light" was created (dir. Gytis Lukšas).