February 27 The exhibition "We look at them, they look at us" opens in the Tolerance Center of the State Vilnius Gaon Jewish Museum (Naugarduko str. 10/2, Vilnius). Rafaelis Chvoles: portraits of Vilnius residents 1945-1959." The exhibition, organized in cooperation with the French Institute, is dedicated to the centenary of restored Lithuania.
R. Chvoles was born in Vilnius in 1913. Here he grew up, began his career as an artist, and in the interwar period he belonged to the "Jung Vilne" group of innovative Jewish artists. After the Second World War, which irreversibly changed the face of Vilnius and its inhabitants, R. Chvoles portrayed many extraordinary personalities - the employees of the Jewish Museum founded after the war, writers, artists and other luminaries, such as the Yiddish singer Nechamas Lifšicaitė or the writer Hirsas Oserovičius.
The inhabitants of his hometown painted by R. Chvoles look at us from the XNUMXth century. central Vilnius. Those who did not manage to survive came to life in the portraits - members of the United Partisan Organization who died tragically during the Holocaust. A separate group of paintings consists of sensitively painted portraits of R. Chvoles' relatives - his poetic wife Maria, his determined sister Rivka, who later became the chess champion of Lithuania and Israel, his sons Alexander and Milij, his stepson Anton, friends and familiar children.
According to Ieva Šadzevičienė, the head of the museum's Tolerance Center and one of the curators of the exhibition, the artist's portraits capture a part of Vilnius' history and the townspeople who created it.
"Looking back at a hundred years of Lithuanian history, the exhibition focuses on post-war Vilnius and the still little-studied first decades of the Soviet occupation. The Vilnius residents immortalized in the portraits of R. Chvoles tried to restore life in their hometown after the war, but faced the policy of suppressing cultural identity, stifled creative freedom", says the art researcher.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalog containing detailed information about the persons portrayed, and the article "Rafaelis Chvolesas: portraits of Vilnius residents 1945-1959" by Laima Laučkaitė, Doctor of Art Studies. and other texts.
Exhibition "We look at them, they look at us. Rafaelis Chvoles: portraits of Vilnius residents 1945-1959." opens as part of the series of events "2018: Lithuanian Century and France" and will be open until May 27.
