Description of the attraction
On the street S. Daukanto, 16 there is a wonderful house-museum of Anastas Monchis. This museum is one of the few museums founded after the restoration of the right to Independence of Lithuania to highlight contemporary art. By visiting it, you can get a broad idea of the work of the great sculptor and artist.
The famous modernist sculptor Anastas Monchis was born in 1921 in the village of Monchai in the Kretinga district. In 1941, he graduated from the Kretinga gymnasium, after which he began to study architecture closely at the Grand Duke Vytautas University of Kaunas. In 1944, the sculptor was forced to leave Lithuania and go to the West, namely to France, where he was finally able to form his taste, as well as artistic preferences. But, despite this, he is rightfully considered a Lithuanian artist, because even outside his homeland, he bequeathed all his works to his native land in which he grew up.
Since 1952, while he was living in France, Anastas began to participate in exhibitions and created 16 sculptures. From 1960 to 1992, Monchis had not only group, but also personal exhibitions in Australia, USA, Monaco, Germany, Belgium, Italy, France, Canada and Lithuania. At the same time, he taught at the summer academies in France and Germany. In 1982, Anastas Monchis became a member of the jury of the International Federation of Photographic Art. In 1991, an exhibition of Monchis photographs was held in Lithuania at the Lithuanian Art Museum.
In 1992, the great sculptor bequeathed all his works to the city of Palanga, where exhibitions of his works were held at the Vilnius Center for Contemporary Art. Works of art brought from France and Germany were delivered to their homeland in 1993 in the spring.
The Foundation for the Preservation of the Creative Heritage of Anastas Monchis, opened and registered on October 27, 1993, decided to take responsibility for the creation of the gallery of the outstanding artist: it was planned to exhibit the continuously growing collection of the master's works.
The following year (in 1993) Anastas Moncisa died in Paris, but was buried near the grave of his parents in the Grushlaukes cemetery in the summer of July 10. Some time later - in 1999 - the House-Museum of Anastas Moncys was opened in Palanga.
The opening of this museum is the result of the persistent work of enthusiasts, as well as faith in the goal. The house-museum of Anastas Monchis becomes a real haven for all the works of the author, keeping the incredible spirit of the famous sculptor.
The collection of the museum is about two hundred works of the great master. Here are his drawings, graphic works, artist's sketches and sculptures of unusual shape and various compositions, the largest number of which are presented in the park located on the territory of the museum. Visitors can touch the exhibits displayed in the museum with their hands. Materials such as stone, wood, amber, tin, plastic, metal, bone, clay and slate were an integral part of all his works. All the creations of the great sculptor express: pain or laughter, sadness or joke, dream, loneliness or poetry - each work carries certain emotions.
All sculptures by A. Monchis embody the most incredible ideas and ideas and carry the flow of energy and vitality. The content of the sculptures struggles with space, with its height and length, reuniting the lines of edges and bends. One gets the impression that any material in the hands of the artist immediately takes on metaphorical forms. By transforming the natural forms of materials into concrete objects, Moncis approached the structure of nature itself: its flexibility, variability, length and strangeness of forms.
When creating stone, wooden, metal objects representing real game puzzles, the author could create amazing things: from a skeleton made of wood to a whistle made of clay, from a juggler's figure to a shaman's mask. The sculptor has always been attracted by the most varied oddities that his imagination drew, after which it immediately poured into all the new objects of cultural heritage.
It is thanks to the works of the great master A. Moncys that you can feel the whole flavor of the Lithuanian nation.
