A Boston Cityscape

Boston had been home to a large Lithuanian community since the late 19th century, which grew further in the mid- 20th century with the arrival of war refugees. By the early 1950s, approximately 13,000 Lithuanians lived in the city. Lithuanian organisations and societies, along with cultural events featuring popular music and dance performances, played a vital role in uniting the diaspora. At the same time, a vibrant professional culture began to flourish. Major initiatives were realised by harnessing the intellectual energy of the diaspora, including the publication of the comprehensive ‘Lithuanian Encyclopaedia’. The poets Bernardas Brazdžionis, Faustas Kirša, Stasys Santvaras and others, many of whom had also settled in Boston, organised regular Saturday literary events. Viktoras Vizgirda, for his part, represented Lithuanian modernist art in exhibitions curated by American institutions. Over time, the Lithuanian villages depicted in his prewar paintings gave way to the urban landscapes of Boston. A Boston scene in the collection, rendered in rich green, brown and red tones, was probably painted in the summer. A similar motif, captured in a different season, appears in Spring in Boston (1951), a painting now in the possession of the family of the American Lithuanian artist Marija Pupiūtė-Ambrozaitienė.

Text author Laura Petrauskaitė

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album THE WORLD OF LANDSCAPES II (2013). Compiler and author Nijolė Tumėnienė, ARTISTS ON THE MOVE (2025). Compiler and text author Laura Petrauskaitė
Expositions: "Free and Unfree. Lithuanian Art between 1945 and 1990", 9 September 2021 – 30 April 2022, Lithuanian Art Centre TARTLE (Užupio St. 40, Vilnius). Curators Dovilė Barcytė and Ieva Burbaitė.

Boston had been home to a large Lithuanian community since the late 19th century, which grew further in the mid- 20th century with the arrival of war refugees. By the early 1950s, approximately 13,000 Lithuanians lived in the city. Lithuanian organisations and societies, along with cultural events featuring popular music and dance performances, played a vital role in uniting the diaspora. At the same time, a vibrant professional culture began to flourish. Major initiatives were realised by harnessing the intellectual energy of the diaspora, including the publication of the comprehensive ‘Lithuanian Encyclopaedia’. The poets Bernardas Brazdžionis, Faustas Kirša, Stasys Santvaras and others, many of whom had also settled in Boston, organised regular Saturday literary events. Viktoras Vizgirda, for his part, represented Lithuanian modernist art in exhibitions curated by American institutions. Over time, the Lithuanian villages depicted in his prewar paintings gave way to the urban landscapes of Boston. A Boston scene in the collection, rendered in rich green, brown and red tones, was probably painted in the summer. A similar motif, captured in a different season, appears in Spring in Boston (1951), a painting now in the possession of the family of the American Lithuanian artist Marija Pupiūtė-Ambrozaitienė.

Text author Laura Petrauskaitė

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album THE WORLD OF LANDSCAPES II (2013). Compiler and author Nijolė Tumėnienė, ARTISTS ON THE MOVE (2025). Compiler and text author Laura Petrauskaitė
Expositions: "Free and Unfree. Lithuanian Art between 1945 and 1990", 9 September 2021 – 30 April 2022, Lithuanian Art Centre TARTLE (Užupio St. 40, Vilnius). Curators Dovilė Barcytė and Ieva Burbaitė.