Alfonsas Dargis, Pajacas

Alfonsas Dargis (1909-1996)
Pajacas
1950., oil on paper, woodcut, 48 × 39, tir: 65/145
Signed. AD: A. Dargis

Alfonsas Dargis (1909-1996) was a Lithuanian painter, graphic artist, scenographer and poet, originally from Žemaitija (Reivyčiai, Mažeikiai district). He studied scenography at Kaunas School of Art (1929-1936) and Vienna Academy of Fine Arts (1936-1940). After the war he moved to Germany and later to the USA, where he worked and taught (he founded Forma Art Studio).
Dargis's work combines Lithuanian folk art subtexts, modernist trends (cubism, abstractionism, primitivism) and scenographic imagination. His compositions often feature mythological motifs, figures, masks and dramatic states, while his graphic and painting techniques are characterised by experimentation, play with form and colour. Dargis is an important figure in the history of Lithuanian diasporic art - he developed the language of modern art, gave Lithuanian art an international dimension, and his work helps us understand how artists in the diaspora combined identity, national tradition and modernist ideas.