Innovative Exhibition of Jāzeps Grosvalds: A Unique Perspective on the Latvian Artist’s Life and Work

In a sense, there are even two exhibitions. One is in the Great Exhibition Hall of the National Art Museum, the other is supplied by “Neputns” in the just-released grand edition “Jāzeps Grosvalds. Persian Scenes”. The manuscript of the only book written by the artist was created in Paris in 1919, shortly after his return from the territory of Persia, but the book itself was published for the first and only time in 1978 in Stockholm.

Photo: Đirts Ragelis

Jumping into the train of Jázep Groswald’s biography in the middle of its composition – in August 1917, as an officer of the tsar’s army, he was commanded to the Western Front in France, where he got through Scandinavia and England. At the beginning of the following year, he joined the British specialized expeditionary corps, which went from Baku to Mesopotamia and Persia.

Photo: Đirts Ragelis

Art scholar, professor emeritus of the Latvian Academy of Arts and Grosvald researcher Eduards Kļaviņš wrote: “This brilliant young man and his works at the beginning of the 20th century, in the years of great crises and changes, resemble a rocket in the sky of the royal field. Thanks to his abilities, upbringing, life circumstances and fate, for a short moment in his life, the seemingly incompatible qualities of two eras merged in him, and in their entirety, he now illuminates one of the highest peaks of Latvia’s historical cultural landscape.”

Photo: Tom Treiberg/TVNET

As described by the project leader of the exhibition and book, art scholar Ieva Kalnača, Jázep Grosvald’s perception of the world, culture and art, as well as himself, as well as his artistic growth, due to the opportunities created by his family status, were completely different from those of his contemporaries. Namely, the artist was born into the family of a lawyer and a politician, also the head of the Latvian Society of Riga, Frīdrich Grosvald, and financial dexterity played a significant role in the growth of talent and its diverse, vivid manifestations. And all this – in the scope of a short life of only 28 years: “Jāžep had a wide circle of acquaintances of the intellectuals of that time since childhood, he received a good education at the Riga city gymnasium, then for the purposes of education and continuing and enriching his life experience he was able to live in Munich, later in Paris, as he also traveled a lot throughout Europe. He was able to get to know the works of old masters in the museums of Western European metropolises and St. Petersburg, visit current art exhibitions, meet several of the most outstanding artists of his time in person, thus getting to know the latest trends in art, and gradually create his own unique artistic language.”

Self portrait. 1906. Photo: Tom Treiberg/TVNET

The uniqueness of the artist is described by the director of the National Art Museum, Māra Lāce: “His vision, curiosity and imaginative perception encouraged him to perceive everything around him with the intelligence of future vision. In his individual handwriting, the artist synthesized the themes relevant to the society at large and to him personally, and at the same time, playing with the frameworks of classical art and the findings of modern trends in terms of color, shape deformation and ornamentally decorative rhythmicity, he created his own unique style of expression.”

2023-11-15 22:02:00
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