Fifth Avenue

Fifth Avenue epitomises fashionable and wealthy New York, a street of luxury boutiques and world-famous museums. When Vytautas Kazimieras Jonynas (1907–1997) arrived in the United States from war-torn Europe in 1951, he appreciated the safety and excitement of life in a big city, even though a feeling of homesickness lingered. This woodcut, which still bears the stylistic hallmarks of his German period, gives a European’s perspective on New York: towering skyscrapers are softened by lush treetops, elegant couples stroll along avenues in the park, and a stylish woman walks her poodle in the foreground. At the centre stands a Classical equestrian statue, the monument to Simón Bolívar, sculpted by Sally James Farnham in 1919, which was relocated to its new site in Central Park the same year that Jonynas arrived. The print suggests that in the dynamic and often chaotic surroundings of New York, war refugees sought traces of the Europe they had lost: green urban spaces, parks, leisurely walks, and familiar cultural symbols.

Text author Laura Petrauskaitė

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album 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.

Fifth Avenue epitomises fashionable and wealthy New York, a street of luxury boutiques and world-famous museums. When Vytautas Kazimieras Jonynas (1907–1997) arrived in the United States from war-torn Europe in 1951, he appreciated the safety and excitement of life in a big city, even though a feeling of homesickness lingered. This woodcut, which still bears the stylistic hallmarks of his German period, gives a European’s perspective on New York: towering skyscrapers are softened by lush treetops, elegant couples stroll along avenues in the park, and a stylish woman walks her poodle in the foreground. At the centre stands a Classical equestrian statue, the monument to Simón Bolívar, sculpted by Sally James Farnham in 1919, which was relocated to its new site in Central Park the same year that Jonynas arrived. The print suggests that in the dynamic and often chaotic surroundings of New York, war refugees sought traces of the Europe they had lost: green urban spaces, parks, leisurely walks, and familiar cultural symbols.

Text author Laura Petrauskaitė

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album 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.