Stasys Krasauskas (1929–1977)

A human being and the denudation of his/her body lies at the centre of the art system of Stasys Krasauskas' innovative oeuvre. His plastic stems from the perception of harmony in Renaissance art, and the traditions of classic German and French etchings.

Through his illustrations of the Modern Lithuanian Poetry, Mr Krasauskas attempted to consolidate the book illustration as an independent art work complementing and expanding literary discourse. Illustrations created for Shakespeare’s Sonnets (1967) and biblical Song of Songs (1966) were valued by the artist most of all. Stasys Krasauskas created a few unique poetic graphic novels: Moters gimimas (Birth of a Woman) (1971) and Amžinai gyvi (Alive for Ever) (1976). This exhibition constitutes an attempt to show the birth of an art work from the initial images in free-form sketches by pencil or felt-tip pen to the finished printed work of graphics.