Aspazija Surgailienė. Ethnomodernism

On April 24 – May 31, 2025, the exhibition Aspazija Surgailienė. Ethnomodernism (curated by Laima Laučkaitė) will be on display at Vilnius Graphic Art Centre’s Kairė-dešinė gallery. The opening will be held on April 24 (Thursday), 2025, at 6pm.

A draught of modernism swept through Lithuanian art in the 1960s during the Soviet “thaw” period. It was then that a young graphic artist who combined modern form with folklore, Aspazija Surgailienė (1928–2011), emerged. In 1961, she designed the innovative Fairy Tale Box – a set of small-format books in a box. It turned out to be so popular that the artist had to create as many as four different versions of it, the total print run of which was close to two hundred thousand copies. The children of the 1960s grew up with this iconic book; its texts and images introduced them to folklore and folk art and fostered national identity.

Surgailienė employed the colour linocut technique. Her works are charming in their decorative nature, primitive drawing akin to folk graphics, and bright, resonant palette. She made not only illustrations, but also series of prints; the most impressive one, Lithuanian Folk Songs (1969), masterfully constructs a naive and simultaneously warm, harmonious vision of the old village. The artist did not create any ideologically charged works during the Soviet era – all her work is based on ethnic motifs.

Having had grown up in the pre-war town of Tauragė, Aspazija Surgailienė studied graphic art at the State Art Institute of the Lithuanian SSR in 1949–1958. She did commissions for the Vaga publishing house, where she illustrated over twenty children’s books, including Aldona Liobytė’s The Moon Married the Sun, Kazys Boruta’s The Sky is Falling, Old Folks’ Fairy Tales compiled by Norbertas Vėlius, Simonas Daukantas’ Samogitian Fairy Tales and the fairy tale Two Brothers. Her works were exhibited in Lithuania and abroad, featured in the international children’s book illustration exhibition in Munich (1965), Biennial of Illustration Bratislava (1967, 1978), Bologna Children’s Book Fair (1971, 1973, 1978), and earned awards in the competitions for most beautiful books.

This retrospective presents for the first time the artist’s multifaceted work from the Surgailis family collection: originals of illustrations, illustrated books, series of linocut prints, Pop Art compositions, and artistic forms that attracted the artist after Lithuania regained independence – stained glass and quilting. Today, when the heritage of Soviet modernism is being rediscovered, the ethnomodernism of the obscure classic of Lithuanian graphic art, Aspazija Surgailienė, looks fresh and relevant.

Laima Laučkaitė