Antanas Žmuidzinavičius Memorial Museum

Contacts
Address: V. Putvinskio g. 64, LT-44211 Kaunas.
Tel. (+370 ~ 37) 22 15 87.
E-mail: mkc.info@takas.lt

Information for Visitor

Opening hours:
Tuesday to Sunday 11–17.

Admission:
Entrance fee – 6 Lt;
Tour – 25 Lt (in Lithuanian), 40 Lt (in foreign language)
50% discount – schoolchildren, students, visitors with International student card (ISIC), military service, senior citizens.
Free entrance – preschool children, residents of children’s homes, disabled of I and II group, staff of museums of Lithuania, ICOM members, artists, students of art schools, students of Fine Art department of Vilnius Academy of Fine Arts and Vytautas Magnus University, journalists, AICA members, EU citizens September 1 through June 1 on Wednesdays.

Collection
The museum contains the artist's works, A. Žmuidzinavičius collection of Lithuanian folk art. 
Collection of the museum consists of a painter's Antanas Žmuidzinavičius' works of art and archive, memorial things. 

Expositions

A. Žmuidzinavičius' Works of Art
The painter's works of art (from the earliest works exhibited in the first Lithuanian art exhibitions to the last works) and abundance of art collections collected by A. Žmuidzinavičius.

A. Žmuidzinavičius' Memorial Flat and Studio

Collection of Lithuanian Folk Art
Various samples of Lithuanian folk art are displayed.

Other news
The museum was established in 1966, in the artist Antanas Žmuidzinavičius' (1876–1966) home (designed by architect Vytautas Landsbergis-Žemkalnis, 1893–1993).
In 1961 the painter A. Žmuidzinavičius gave his works of art, collections and archive to Lithuania.
In 1967 the painter's memorial flat and studio were opened to public.
In 1982 a special wing was built for the collection of "Devils".

Antanas Žmuidzinavičius
A. Žmuidzinavičius (1876–1966), painter, born in Seirijai, southern Lithuania.
He graduated from the Teachers' Seminary of Veiveriai in 1894 and for four years worked as elementary school teacher. Deciding to take up the study of art, he went to Warsaw in 1898, where he began his training with the noted Polish painter of historical subjects, Wojciech Gerson. He showed his first works at an exhibition of the Art Salon of Warsaw in 1902.
In 1905-1906 he attended private art academies in Paris. Shortly after his arrival in Vilnius in the summer of 1906, he was elected chairman of a committee, which organised the first exhibition of Lithuanian artists. The exhibit was opened on Jan. 9, 1907; of the 213 canvases shown, 35 were his, including such delicately hued landscapes as The River Neris near Antakalnis, Hamlet in Dzūkija, A Lithuanian After Work, and Exile. Through his efforts and of others, the Lithuanian Art Society (Lietuvių Dailės Draugija) came into being that same year; he was elected its president.
In 1908 he set out on a journey which took him through Western Europe and ended in the United States. 
He returned to Vilnius in autumn of 1909 and resumed his activities with the Art Society.
In 1912 he went to Hamburg to study fresco painting.
In 1914 he travelled in northern Norway painting arctic landscapes and came back to Vilnius just before the outbreak of World War I.
After the war, living in Kaunas, he continued to concern himself with the organisational life of art and took an active part in civic affairs throughout the period of independence. At a retrospective exhibit of Lithuanian art in 1920 he displayed 109 canvases.
He revisited the United States in 1922–1924; exhibitions of his art were held in Washington (1923), and in Chicago and New York (1924). From 1926–1931, he headed the revived Lithuanian Art Society.
Active in the National Guard (Šaulių Sąjunga), he served as its president (1929-1934) and at times edited its organ Trimitas (The Bugle).
From 1926-1940 he taught drawing at the Kaunas Art School.
Following the Soviet occupation of Lithuania during World War II, he lectured at the Institute of Applied Art and Decorative Arts in Kaunas (1944–1951), the Institute of Fine Arts in Vilnius (1951–1953), and at the Polytechnic Institute of Kaunas (1953–1966).
Throughout his long life he was an ardent collector, amassing an extensive and valuable collection of Lithuanian art, historic and ethnographic items, and folk artefacts. A portion of this collection is housed in museums in Kaunas and Vilnius, and the rest in the museum bearing his name, which was founded in Kaunas in 1965.

Photos from the stock of the M. K. Čiurlionis National Art Museum