Ceļā uz monogrāfiju par Kārli Baltgaili

• Authors: Pūtele Anna

Title variants

EN

Towards A Monograph on Kārlis Baltgailis

• Languages of publication: LV

Abstracts

EN

Kārlis Baltgailis was born in Gatarta Manor on 15 (27) March 1893. At the Atis Ķeniņš Boys Realschule (1907–1911) in Riga, he received a good education with many prominent Latvian cultural figures who became outstanding examples for Baltgailis to follow in his own pedagogical career. After finishing the Realschule, Baltgailis moved to Russia where he attended Penza Secondary Art School (1911–1917) where Latvian students tried to realise progressive modernist ideas in the rather conservative Penza. Having received a secondary school teaching certificate in drawing and art history, Baltgailis returned to Riga in May 1917 and volunteered for the 5th Zemgale Latvian Riflemen’s Regiment. As a soldier he ended up in Russia again where he stayed in Omsk but returned to Riga from Vladivostok with the Imanta Regiment in 1920. Back in his native land, Baltgailis joined Latvia’s artistic life gradually but his teaching work began quite soon. Since 1920, he taught drawing in Cēsis but in 1922, he became the teacher of drawing, art history and drawing methodology at Jelgava Teachers’ Institute where he taught until its closing in 1944. In 1925, Baltgailis co-founded the artists’ and writers’ society Zaļā Vārna (Green Crow, 1925–1939). Almost all of his 30 years work – sketches, paintings, drawings as well as materials gathered on various artists – was lost in the fire that ravaged Jelgava in 1944. In 1945, Baltgailis was admitted to the Latvian SSR Artists’ Union but in 1946, he began working at the drawing studio of Cēsis House of Culture (1946–1956). In 1950, Baltgalis was dismissed from his teacher’s job at Cēsis Teachers’ Institute and expelled from the Artists’ Union as a result of Soviet repressions. In 1958, he was readmitted to the Artists’ Union. Kārlis Baltgailis died in Cēsis on 15 February 1979. Baltgailis belongs to the generation of Latvian artists born in the 1890s, witnessing a new turn in Latvian painting towards modernist creativity. As the most direct follower of the ideas of Jāzeps Grosvalds and Jēkabs Kazaks, he became the only artist who consistently pursued the iconographic and stylistic line of early modernism over his entire creative career.

Keywords

EN

KĀRLIS BALTGAILIS; LATVIAN PAINTING; BATTLE PAINTING; LATVIAN RIFLEMEN; OIL PAINTING; TEMPERA; WATERCOLOUR

• Publisher: Institute of Art History of the Latvian Academy of Art and Art History Research Support Foundation
• Journal: Makslas Vesture un Teorija
• Year: 2019
• Volume: 22
• Pages: 40-58

Contributors

author

Pūtele Anna

• Latvian National Museum of Art, Jaņa Rozentāla laukums 1, Riga LV-1010, Latvia