The Great Shimmer

Vytautas Osvaldas Virkau (1930–2017) fled to the West with his family during the Second World War and emigrated to the United States after briefly studying at the Lithuanian gymnasium in Munich. One vivid memory of his inter-continental journey was the celebration of the 16th anniversary of the transatlantic flight by Steponas Darius and Stasys Girėnas, held on board the ship: ‘What a coincidence: in the Atlantic Ocean. We are sailing, they were flying. It’s just a pity that we were going in opposite directions,’ the future artist wrote in his diary (Vytautas Osvaldas Virkau, Dienoraštis 1944–1952 [Diary 1944–1952], ed. Dalia Kuizinienė, Vilnius: Versus, 2023, pp. 206–207). Among the passengers was the 50,000th displaced person going to the USA, so the ship was ceremoniously seen off from Bremerhaven by an American band, and welcomed in Boston by the mayor of Washington, the governor of Massachusetts, and other high-ranking American officials. In the first months after his resettlement, Virkau worked as an unskilled labourer in a sweatshop, where the elderly seamstresses conversed in Yiddish, an unexpected encounter between different waves of East European immigrants in the New World. However, his contact with the Jewish diaspora remained episodic and did not lead to lasting ties. His artistic trajectory was shaped by the cultural demands of both his American environment and the Lithuanian émigré community. After studying graphic design at the Art Institute of Chicago, he contributed illustrations to works of fiction and cultural magazines, designing decorative and visually refined covers for publications that reflected the highest standards of American graphic design. His painting The Great Shimmer is similarly admired for its striking decorativeness.

Text author Laura Petrauskaitė

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album ARTISTS ON THE MOVE (2025). Compiler and text author Laura Petrauskaitė

Vytautas Osvaldas Virkau (1930–2017) fled to the West with his family during the Second World War and emigrated to the United States after briefly studying at the Lithuanian gymnasium in Munich. One vivid memory of his inter-continental journey was the celebration of the 16th anniversary of the transatlantic flight by Steponas Darius and Stasys Girėnas, held on board the ship: ‘What a coincidence: in the Atlantic Ocean. We are sailing, they were flying. It’s just a pity that we were going in opposite directions,’ the future artist wrote in his diary (Vytautas Osvaldas Virkau, Dienoraštis 1944–1952 [Diary 1944–1952], ed. Dalia Kuizinienė, Vilnius: Versus, 2023, pp. 206–207). Among the passengers was the 50,000th displaced person going to the USA, so the ship was ceremoniously seen off from Bremerhaven by an American band, and welcomed in Boston by the mayor of Washington, the governor of Massachusetts, and other high-ranking American officials. In the first months after his resettlement, Virkau worked as an unskilled labourer in a sweatshop, where the elderly seamstresses conversed in Yiddish, an unexpected encounter between different waves of East European immigrants in the New World. However, his contact with the Jewish diaspora remained episodic and did not lead to lasting ties. His artistic trajectory was shaped by the cultural demands of both his American environment and the Lithuanian émigré community. After studying graphic design at the Art Institute of Chicago, he contributed illustrations to works of fiction and cultural magazines, designing decorative and visually refined covers for publications that reflected the highest standards of American graphic design. His painting The Great Shimmer is similarly admired for its striking decorativeness.

Text author Laura Petrauskaitė

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album ARTISTS ON THE MOVE (2025). Compiler and text author Laura Petrauskaitė