A Dark-Skinned Girl

Franz Domscheit (Pranas Domšaitis, 1880–1965) enjoyed travelling, and in the 1920s visited many European countries, Turkey, and even Africa. His wanderings in Africa have not yet been documented, but it is known that he went to Somalia, where he painted portraits of local people. It is likely that this portrait of a dark-skinned girl conveys his impressions from that journey, although it resembles Gauguin’s Tahitian girls more than a Somali (the likeness may be the result of his impressions of Post-Impressionist art from when he was young). Africa later became his homeland, for when the Nazis came to power, they classed his works as ‘degenerate art’, and Domscheit had to leave Germany. He and his wife wandered around Europe until the end of the war. In 1949, they decided to go to the Republic of South Africa, and settled in Cape Town. This is how African motifs became prevalent in the late period of Domscheit’s work. 

Text author Giedrė Jankevičiūtė

As was common among European modernists, Pranas Domšaitis developed a fascination with non-European cultures, although this often took the form of exoticising and objectifying the people. He would recount with admiration how his first model in Berlin was a 15-year-old girl from the Tutsi tribe, probably from German East Africa, which encompassed the colonised countries of Rwanda and Burundi (Kristina Jokūbavičienė, Pranas Domšaitis. Vaizduotės realybė [Pranas Domšaitis. The Reality of Imagination], Vilnius: Lietuvos dailės muziejus, 2015, p. 60). The artist did not shy away from recalling the ‘cultivated savages’ who were exhibited in European zoos, a practice that at the time was seen as normal. These human pavilions, placed alongside animal pens, presented African cultures, crafts and traditions in a popularised and simplified manner. Domšaitis visited the Berlin Zoo in the 1920s, where he observed a group of men and women from Somalia. His travels later took him to Tunisia, where he also sketched landscapes and domestic scenes. His painting A Dark-Skinned Girl reflects the typical Eurocentric, hierarchical and masculinist attitude prevalent among artists of his generation, one that exalted and idealised the exoticised beauty of their subjects.

Text author Laura Petrauskaitė

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album MORE THAN JUST BEAUTY (2012). Compiler and author Giedrė Jankevičiūtė, ARTISTS ON THE MOVE (2025). Compiler and text author Laura Petrauskaitė
Expositions: “More Than Just Beauty: The Image of Woman in the LAWIN collection”, 12 October – 11 November 2012, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius; “Always on the Road. Paintings from Private Collections”, 12 June – 27 July 2015, M. Žilinskas Art Gallery, Kaunas

Franz Domscheit (Pranas Domšaitis, 1880–1965) enjoyed travelling, and in the 1920s visited many European countries, Turkey, and even Africa. His wanderings in Africa have not yet been documented, but it is known that he went to Somalia, where he painted portraits of local people. It is likely that this portrait of a dark-skinned girl conveys his impressions from that journey, although it resembles Gauguin’s Tahitian girls more than a Somali (the likeness may be the result of his impressions of Post-Impressionist art from when he was young). Africa later became his homeland, for when the Nazis came to power, they classed his works as ‘degenerate art’, and Domscheit had to leave Germany. He and his wife wandered around Europe until the end of the war. In 1949, they decided to go to the Republic of South Africa, and settled in Cape Town. This is how African motifs became prevalent in the late period of Domscheit’s work. 

Text author Giedrė Jankevičiūtė

As was common among European modernists, Pranas Domšaitis developed a fascination with non-European cultures, although this often took the form of exoticising and objectifying the people. He would recount with admiration how his first model in Berlin was a 15-year-old girl from the Tutsi tribe, probably from German East Africa, which encompassed the colonised countries of Rwanda and Burundi (Kristina Jokūbavičienė, Pranas Domšaitis. Vaizduotės realybė [Pranas Domšaitis. The Reality of Imagination], Vilnius: Lietuvos dailės muziejus, 2015, p. 60). The artist did not shy away from recalling the ‘cultivated savages’ who were exhibited in European zoos, a practice that at the time was seen as normal. These human pavilions, placed alongside animal pens, presented African cultures, crafts and traditions in a popularised and simplified manner. Domšaitis visited the Berlin Zoo in the 1920s, where he observed a group of men and women from Somalia. His travels later took him to Tunisia, where he also sketched landscapes and domestic scenes. His painting A Dark-Skinned Girl reflects the typical Eurocentric, hierarchical and masculinist attitude prevalent among artists of his generation, one that exalted and idealised the exoticised beauty of their subjects.

Text author Laura Petrauskaitė

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album MORE THAN JUST BEAUTY (2012). Compiler and author Giedrė Jankevičiūtė, ARTISTS ON THE MOVE (2025). Compiler and text author Laura Petrauskaitė
Expositions: “More Than Just Beauty: The Image of Woman in the LAWIN collection”, 12 October – 11 November 2012, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius; “Always on the Road. Paintings from Private Collections”, 12 June – 27 July 2015, M. Žilinskas Art Gallery, Kaunas