Jetty

The sense of transience and uncertainty experienced while living in DP camps in Germany spurred many Lithuanians to seek more stable lives abroad. Rather than seeking help from his brother Povilas Voronovičius, a committed socialist who had been living in America since before the war, Adomas Varnas chose to begin his new life in the USA with the support of his trusted friends Viktorija and Bronius Tūbelis. Varnas settled in Chicago in 1949. At 70 years old, he was the oldest of the postwar émigré artists. Other artists of his generation and participants in the first Lithuanian art exhibitions, such as Antanas Žmuidzinavičius, Petras Kalpokas, Petras Rimša and Jonas Šileika, had hesitated in 1944 to emigrate to the West. While still in the French occupation zone in Ravensburg, Varnas made contact with Lithuanians in the USA. His circumstances obliged him, albeit reluctantly, to paint portraits of members of the Lithuanian diaspora, often working from photographs they had sent. In Chicago, photography became an invaluable aid for painting Lithuanian landscapes. According to Zita Žemaitytė, the artist’s wife Marija Kuraitytė-Varnienė ‘collected photographs of Lithuanian scenes from newspapers, cut them out, and pasted them into scrapbooks. Based on these and on his imagination, Varnas sincerely sought to recreate the Lithuanian landscape [...] His nostalgic paintings, enriched with greyish and pink tones, were well received, and customers bought them eagerly’ (Zita Žemaitytė, Adomas Varnas, Vilnius: Baltos lankos, 1998, pp. 211–212). It is likely that Jetty was also painted from a photograph in the press, or else it was inspired by a corner of nature in America reminiscent of Lithuania. With its sensitive brushstrokes and restrained colour harmonies, the artist seems to dissolve natural forms into a serene idyll bathed in the soft light of the afternoon sun.

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

The sense of transience and uncertainty experienced while living in DP camps in Germany spurred many Lithuanians to seek more stable lives abroad. Rather than seeking help from his brother Povilas Voronovičius, a committed socialist who had been living in America since before the war, Adomas Varnas chose to begin his new life in the USA with the support of his trusted friends Viktorija and Bronius Tūbelis. Varnas settled in Chicago in 1949. At 70 years old, he was the oldest of the postwar émigré artists. Other artists of his generation and participants in the first Lithuanian art exhibitions, such as Antanas Žmuidzinavičius, Petras Kalpokas, Petras Rimša and Jonas Šileika, had hesitated in 1944 to emigrate to the West. While still in the French occupation zone in Ravensburg, Varnas made contact with Lithuanians in the USA. His circumstances obliged him, albeit reluctantly, to paint portraits of members of the Lithuanian diaspora, often working from photographs they had sent. In Chicago, photography became an invaluable aid for painting Lithuanian landscapes. According to Zita Žemaitytė, the artist’s wife Marija Kuraitytė-Varnienė ‘collected photographs of Lithuanian scenes from newspapers, cut them out, and pasted them into scrapbooks. Based on these and on his imagination, Varnas sincerely sought to recreate the Lithuanian landscape [...] His nostalgic paintings, enriched with greyish and pink tones, were well received, and customers bought them eagerly’ (Zita Žemaitytė, Adomas Varnas, Vilnius: Baltos lankos, 1998, pp. 211–212). It is likely that Jetty was also painted from a photograph in the press, or else it was inspired by a corner of nature in America reminiscent of Lithuania. With its sensitive brushstrokes and restrained colour harmonies, the artist seems to dissolve natural forms into a serene idyll bathed in the soft light of the afternoon sun.

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