The conference is dedicated to the centenary of the Kaunas School of Arts.
Co-organised by Kaunas Faculty and Institute of Art Research of Vilnius Academy of Arts, Academy of Arts of Kaunas University of Applied Sciences and M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art

The Kaunas School of Arts will celebrate its centennial in 2022. To mark the occasion, an academic conference and accompanying exhibitions will also intermingle with the events for Kaunas – European Capital of Culture 2022. We would like to take this opportunity to focus on the significance of higher education in the arts for modern artistic culture, and its effect on the later development and transformations of that culture.

The processes of artistic education that had been cultivated from the very foundation of the Kaunas School of Arts, and the artistic tradition in Lithuania generated therein, underwent a multitude of transitions.

The conference invites participants to ponder anew the origin and nature of the traditions that took shape at the Kaunas School of Arts; discuss the interactions with the ideas of the modernist movement; remember the history of the Kaunas School of Arts, along with its roots and its course of development; highlight parallels with other schools of art in the rst half of the 20th century, especially those established at a similar time.

We invite presenters to discuss key episodes in the history of the Kaunas School of Arts, and to raise questions about processes, personalities and events worthy of attention and wider recognition; in addition, to clarify the links between the activities of personalities affiliated and associated with the School, including teachers, artists, architects and art historians, and to identify relationships in the context of local, national and global art.

Conference scientific committee:
Dr. Algė Andriulytė (Institute of Art Research of Vilnius Academy of Arts / Lithuanian National Museum of Art)
Dr. Karolina Jakaitė (Institute of Art Research of Vilnius Academy of Arts)
Prof. dr. Stanislavas Mostauskis (Kaunas Faculty of Vilnius Academy of Arts)
Prof. dr. Raimonda Simanaitienė (Vytautas Magnus University‘s Faculty of Arts)
Dr. Inga Valentinienė (Academy of Arts of Kaunas University of Applied Sciences)

Conference partners:
Society of Lithuanian Art Historians
Kaunas – European Capital of Culture 2022

Conference Programme

Theses of the Conference