Lust for life and the path to the easel. A mosaic of Birutas Baumane’s work is on display at LNMM / Diena

“Biruta Baumane created her works of art with great passion, because she loved painting, which reflected her passion for life,” says exhibition curator Ilze Putniņa.

This exhibition displays works of art already in the LNMM collection, as well as new acquisitions, which were the artist’s bequest at the Latvian National Museum of Art, and all together form a veritable mosaic of the painter’s creative work. “Biruta Bauman was very sorry to part with her works and her desire to keep them with her over the years has even become legendary,” emphasizes the curator of the exhibition.

At the end of his life, the artist went through his collection and compiled a list of paintings to be delivered to the museum. “When I arrived at Biruta Baumane’s workshop it was full of her works and you could get to the easel through the” path “, Ilze Putniņa remembers the moment when she selected the paintings included in the list together with the artist’s daughter.

Biruta Baumane dedicated 70 years of his life to painting. Her friendship with Tatjana Suta led her to Roman Suta’s studio, which became Birutas Baumanes’ first serious introduction to art, after which she entered the Latvian Academy of Arts.

“Biruta Baumane paints in places with high intensity – such as ports, fairs, circuses. Joy, reunion and farewell, brilliance and risk. It is a re-belief in a moment of dazzling beauty, in which the passing note of happiness is also felt Every now and then in a mercilessly lit circle of a circus arena there is a poignant story of a small life, in which the hero’s flaw is that he is alone, but the dream is big, and makes the lucky ones laugh, “he describes the curator of the exhibition.

Biruta Baumane addressed the circus theme already during the Art Academy in the twentieth century. In the 1940s, when he went to the circus to paint, the clown Roland was standing in the arena with a white hat, blue costume, high-heeled shoes and a black, limping, white-faced, red-lipped Piero next to him. in his hand. “This sight has poisoned me all my life”, admitted the artist (Anda Kļaviņa, Poisoned circusDiena.lv).

Biruta Baumane’s art is a very personal art. “She paints what happens to herself, especially in nudes. They can be light and liberating like walking on ice, airy and subtly painted with red or heavy, freezing line outlines,” adds Ilze Putniņa.

The exhibition at the LNMM can be visited until January 8th.

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