To give an insight into the activities of Latvian artists in the course
of the 20th century, it has been decided to organise an exhibition of Latvian paintings at
the State Art Museum in May 2000 during the EBRD Board of Governors’ Meeting in Riga.
Ilze Konstante, Director General of the Latvian Art Museum Association, presents the
concept of the exhibition:
- We are delighted at the opportunity of arranging the art exhibition
next May. For this exhibition we have chosen such artists as, for example, Janis Pauluks,
Rudolfs Pinnis, Leonids Arins and Georgs Senbergs, who reached the acme of their creative
work during the post-war years; other artists like Ojars Abols, Edgars Iltners and Boriss
Berzins were at their height a little later, during the Soviet times. Represented will
also be the generation of painters who came into art in the sixties, as Leonids Maurins,
Biruta Delle and the generation who made their appearance in the seventies - Aija Zarina,
Sandra Krastina, Ieva Iltnere and others. The idea of the exhibition is to show the course
and ways of development of Latvian art by displaying the pictures of famous Latvian
painters created under the totalitarian regime.
All the artists are remarkable personalities who have managed to bring
some strikingly new and original nuances into Latvian painting. The authors are very
different in style, so we have to take care of their works being integrated into common
composition at the same time exposing their individual peculiarities. At present we are
working hard to select the authors and their paintings from the collections of the Art
Museum Arsenals and The Artists’ Union. We are elaborating the concept of the
exposition and developing its artistic model. Likewise, it will also be possible to see
the permanent exposition of the Museum in May; the new exhibition will serve as a
continuation to this exposition, as it will acquaint with the artists underrepresented so
far and continue the Latvian art tradition.
