Lucia Peka
Encyclopedia
Lucia Peka was a Latvian-American Artist. Born in Latvia, she became part of the Diaspora of artists who fled Latvia during World War II, and eventually settled in the United States where she was a successful painter of landscapes, figures, and still life for almost 50 years. A touring gallery collection is currently (2010-2011) exhibiting a small collection of Peka oil paintings along with other Latvian Displaced Persons of the mid 20th century.
Born Lūcija Rudzītis, in Latvia, Peka was educated and worked in Sweden
, France
, Germany
, and Canada
. She ultimately moved to the United States with husband and fellow Latvian Andrew Peka (Latvian
: Andris Peka). They worked and resided in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
until her death, in 1991. Interred with Latvian national recognition (FRONTES TEĀTRA DALĪBNIECE) under her birth name Lūcija Rudzītis at the Latvian Cemetery in Elka Park, New York.
Lucia's father was a Roman Catholic priest in the St. James's Cathedral, Riga, Latvia until the family fled to Sweden during World War II
.
After living and working for several years in Germany, France and Sweden, Peka moved to Canada where she continued her art studies at the McGill Conservatory in Montreal, and the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh where her art was exhibited at the Carnegie Museum of Art
, along with several other prestigious galleries.
Beginning July 24, 2010, four of Lucia Peka's oil paintings were included in a Latvian Diaspora exhibition in Michigan entitled, "The Artist in Exile - Latvian Refugee Art, 1944-1950." In collaboration with the Linklava Gallery of the Latvian Center Garezers, The Global Society for Latvian Art will tour the work of the 24 most-distinguished Latvian Diaspora artists of the 20th Century.
"The Artist in Exile" is the second traveling exhibition organized by the Global Society, and makes its first stop in Three Rivers, Michigan. The exhibit features work by 24 artists created when these artists were living as displaced persons during the years 1944-1950. After the opening reception on July 24, the exhibit will travel to centers of Latvian diaspora culture throughout the United States, with its second stop in Cleveland during November 2010.
- Latvian nationals who produced art outside of Latvia during the Soviet occupation. As more than 200,000 Latvian citizens died during World War II and the Nazi occupation
, thousands of Latvians fled the country to become the Diaspora. When these Latvian "Displaced Persons" came to the United States and other western countries, they saw in the subsequent Soviet occupation of their homeland, an effort to eradicate Latvian culture. But resources are now available, in Latvia and abroad, to provide a substantial overview of art from this Latvian Diaspora period. In Latvia the three main institutions responsible for maintaining such information on artists of the Diaspora are the Latvian National Museum of Art, the Latvian Center for Contemporary Art and the Latvian Artist’s Union. Together, they have begun to complete the history of European art.
Latvian art historian Janis Siliņš described the movement to which Lucia Peka, Mārtiņš Krūmiņš
and other Latvian-Americans belong as "those artists who amidst the changing trends of contemporary art, after thirty years in exile and emigration, are developing the traditions of their homeland art - of the Latvian or Riga School."
R. Stevens of La Revue Moderne, commenting on a December 1968 installation of her work at the Galerie Roccia in Montreal, wrote, "Lucia's paintings are powerful and heavily textured. She suggests whole worlds, working with simple but ample strokes of brush and pallet knife. Her painting, 'The Well' stands out against the light of a tormented sky, suggesting a feeling of pathetic solitude. Her choice of colors is strong yet harmonious. Her compositions seem almost musical. She may be one of the last great colorists."
Lucia Peka won the "Purchase Prize" at the Ford City, Pennsylvania Art Collection. She won the Lila Shelby Award at the National Academy Museum
in New York. Owners of her work include the Latvian National Museum of Art, the Permanent Collection in the Alfred Khouri Memorial Wing of the Chrysler Museum of Art
in Norfolk, Virginia
, the Huntington Library and Art Collections
in San Marino, California
, actor George Clooney
, and former New York Governor Mario Cuomo
. Many of her paintings have been donated to charitable endeavors, such as the Women's Hospital in Cleveland, PBS Channel 13 (New York) and the American Cancer Society.
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After a June 1969 showing of Peka's work at the Chrysler Museum, Cornelia Justice of the Norfolk Ledger-Star commented, "I recall with pleasure the Lucia Peka oil so innocuously labeled 'Flowers'. With a technique so bold and a color sense so far above average, this should have been given a more flamboyant title."
pioneered the Latvian landscape painting tradition. which Peka followed. His favored themes included spring floodwaters, melting snow, ice, sludge, reflections of trees. Whereas in his younger days his work indicated a worldview grounded in realism, his turn-of-the-century paintings display typical impressionist brushwork.
By the 1920s, modernism in Latvian art was in decline as artists turned to Neorealism
. Similar to the concurrent New Objectivity
movement in German painting, which typically employed an aloof, if perfectly detailed, depiction of objects in nature, Neorealists of the Rīga Art Group (including Aleksandra Belcova
and Uga Skulme
) were pressing forward with their experimentation. Peka did not follow in this direction.
Instead, during the 1930s, Peka and her contemporaries turned to tonal painting, and richly textured, almost scarified surfaces. Here an influence could be noted from the works of Belgian and French artists, especially Maurice de Vlaminck
and Isidore Opsomer. These were the textural and stylistic influences which shaped Lucia Peka. Influenced by Leonardo da Vinci
and Rembrandt, these artists paid particular attention to issues of light, coloring and texture. With naïve expression, painters preserved their closeness to nature, accenting mythological, historical, and traditional Latvian ethnic motifs and folk art.
After Kārlis Ulmanis
’ coup in 1934, a new official Latvian government policy encouraged traditional realism. Artists were required to have a moral stance and nationalistic content in art works, monumentality and positivism, and to turn away from the influence of European art. Two effects of this policy were to discourage artistic freedom and encourage artists such as Peka to leave Latvia.
Once she had relocated to the US, Peka was an active member of several Latvian Diaspora
art associations and regional artist groups, including: Copley Society of Art
(Copley, Mass.), Fairfax Virginia Art League, the American Latvian Artists Association, Artist's League of Central New Jersey, the National Association of Women Artists in New York, and the American Latvian Association
of Rockville, Maryland.
Along with Mārtiņš Krūmiņš (1900–1992), Jānis Kalmīte
(1907–1996), Aleksandra Belcova
(1892–1981) and Vija Celmins
(born 1938), Lucia Peka began to be seen as an expressionist
painter well-known in the World War II Latvian Diaspora
community. Throughout their 50 years of exile from Latvia, these painters kept alive the folk themes of Latvian ethnic culture in the face of invasion and occupation by foreign powers. Peka and the others attempted to develop an expatriot Latvian national art, following in the footsteps of artists such as Ādams Alksnis
, Teodors Ūders, and Vilhelms Purvitis
.
In a 1972 interview, Lucia Peka explained that her "outlook on life has always been bright, hopeful and positive with a relentless energy and movement." When asked about her preference for working with oils and the pallet knife, the artist compared her painting to "cooking with butter, both having a similar texture."
According to Dr. Ansis Karps of the Latvian National Museum of Art, Peka was, "always surrounded by music, and had a wonderfully sensitive and absorbing life as she sought to express feelings, desires and dreams through oil painting."
Life and work
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. She ultimately moved to the United States with husband and fellow Latvian Andrew Peka (Latvian
Latvian language
Latvian is the official state language of Latvia. It is also sometimes referred to as Lettish. There are about 1.4 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and about 150,000 abroad. The Latvian language has a relatively large number of non-native speakers, atypical for a small language...
: Andris Peka). They worked and resided in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...
until her death, in 1991. Interred with Latvian national recognition (FRONTES TEĀTRA DALĪBNIECE) under her birth name Lūcija Rudzītis at the Latvian Cemetery in Elka Park, New York.
Lucia's father was a Roman Catholic priest in the St. James's Cathedral, Riga, Latvia until the family fled to Sweden during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
After living and working for several years in Germany, France and Sweden, Peka moved to Canada where she continued her art studies at the McGill Conservatory in Montreal, and the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh where her art was exhibited at the Carnegie Museum of Art
Carnegie Museum of Art
The Carnegie Museum of Art, located in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is an art museum founded in 1895 by the Pittsburgh-based industrialist Andrew Carnegie...
, along with several other prestigious galleries.
Beginning July 24, 2010, four of Lucia Peka's oil paintings were included in a Latvian Diaspora exhibition in Michigan entitled, "The Artist in Exile - Latvian Refugee Art, 1944-1950." In collaboration with the Linklava Gallery of the Latvian Center Garezers, The Global Society for Latvian Art will tour the work of the 24 most-distinguished Latvian Diaspora artists of the 20th Century.
"The Artist in Exile" is the second traveling exhibition organized by the Global Society, and makes its first stop in Three Rivers, Michigan. The exhibit features work by 24 artists created when these artists were living as displaced persons during the years 1944-1950. After the opening reception on July 24, the exhibit will travel to centers of Latvian diaspora culture throughout the United States, with its second stop in Cleveland during November 2010.
Latvian diaspora
Peka is part of the Latvian DiasporaLatvian Diaspora
Among many international diasporas, this particular racial grouping is of Latvian nationals who lived outside of Latvia during the Soviet occupation. As more than 200,000 Latvian citizens died during World War II and the Nazi occupation, thousands of Latvians fled the country to become the diaspora...
- Latvian nationals who produced art outside of Latvia during the Soviet occupation. As more than 200,000 Latvian citizens died during World War II and the Nazi occupation
Occupation of the Baltic republics by Nazi Germany
The occupation of the Baltic republics by Nazi Germany occurred during Operation Barbarossa from 1941 to 1944. Initially, many Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians considered the Germans as liberators from the Soviet Union. The Balts hoped for the restoration of independence, but instead the...
, thousands of Latvians fled the country to become the Diaspora. When these Latvian "Displaced Persons" came to the United States and other western countries, they saw in the subsequent Soviet occupation of their homeland, an effort to eradicate Latvian culture. But resources are now available, in Latvia and abroad, to provide a substantial overview of art from this Latvian Diaspora period. In Latvia the three main institutions responsible for maintaining such information on artists of the Diaspora are the Latvian National Museum of Art, the Latvian Center for Contemporary Art and the Latvian Artist’s Union. Together, they have begun to complete the history of European art.
Latvian art historian Janis Siliņš described the movement to which Lucia Peka, Mārtiņš Krūmiņš
Martins Krumins
Mārtiņš Krūmiņš was a Latvian-American Impressionist painter. He left Latvia after World War II and came to the United States in 1950. As Janis Siliņš wrote in a book about Mārtiņš Krūmiņš "Mārtiņš Krūmiņš .....
and other Latvian-Americans belong as "those artists who amidst the changing trends of contemporary art, after thirty years in exile and emigration, are developing the traditions of their homeland art - of the Latvian or Riga School."
Awards and criticism
National Academy of Design
The National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, founded in New York City as the National Academy of Design – known simply as the "National Academy" – is an honorary association of American artists founded in 1825 by Samuel F. B. Morse, Asher B. Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E...
in New York. Owners of her work include the Latvian National Museum of Art, the Permanent Collection in the Alfred Khouri Memorial Wing of the Chrysler Museum of Art
Chrysler Museum of Art
The Chrysler Museum of Art is an art museum in the Ghent district of Norfolk, Virginia. The museum was originally founded in 1933 as the Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences. In 1971, automotive heir, Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. , donated most of his extensive collection to the museum...
in Norfolk, Virginia
Norfolk, Virginia
Norfolk is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. With a population of 242,803 as of the 2010 Census, it is Virginia's second-largest city behind neighboring Virginia Beach....
, the Huntington Library and Art Collections
The Huntington Library
The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens is an educational and research institution established by Henry E. Huntington in San Marino, in the San Rafael Hills near Pasadena, California in the United States...
in San Marino, California
San Marino, California
San Marino is a small, affluent city in Los Angeles County, California. Incorporated in 1913, the City founders designed the community to be uniquely residential, with expansive properties surrounded by beautiful gardens, wide streets, and well maintained parkways...
, actor George Clooney
George Clooney
George Timothy Clooney is an American actor, film director, producer, and screenwriter. For his work as an actor, he has received two Golden Globe Awards and an Academy Award...
, and former New York Governor Mario Cuomo
Mario Cuomo
Mario Matthew Cuomo served as the 52nd Governor of New York from 1983 to 1994, and is the father of Andrew Cuomo, the current governor of New York.-Early life:...
. Many of her paintings have been donated to charitable endeavors, such as the Women's Hospital in Cleveland, PBS Channel 13 (New York) and the American Cancer Society.
Associations and influences
Vilhelms PurvītisVilhelms Purvitis
Vilhelms Purvītis was a landscape painter and educator who founded the Latvian Academy of Art and was its rector from 1919 to 1934....
pioneered the Latvian landscape painting tradition. which Peka followed. His favored themes included spring floodwaters, melting snow, ice, sludge, reflections of trees. Whereas in his younger days his work indicated a worldview grounded in realism, his turn-of-the-century paintings display typical impressionist brushwork.
By the 1920s, modernism in Latvian art was in decline as artists turned to Neorealism
Neorealism (art)
In art, neorealism was established by the ex-Camden Town Group painters Charles Ginner and Harold Gilman at the beginning of World War I. They set out to explore the spirit of their age through the shapes and colours of daily life...
. Similar to the concurrent New Objectivity
New Objectivity
The New Objectivity is a term used to characterize the attitude of public life in Weimar Germany as well as the art, literature, music, and architecture created to adapt to it...
movement in German painting, which typically employed an aloof, if perfectly detailed, depiction of objects in nature, Neorealists of the Rīga Art Group (including Aleksandra Belcova
Aleksandra Belcova
Aleksandra Belcova was a Latvian and Russian painter.She studied at the Art School in Penza and the State Free Art Workshop in Petrograd...
and Uga Skulme
Uga Skulme
Uga Skulme was a Latvian painter.Skulme was born in Jēkabpils, Courland. He studied at the Faculty of Law, the St...
) were pressing forward with their experimentation. Peka did not follow in this direction.
Instead, during the 1930s, Peka and her contemporaries turned to tonal painting, and richly textured, almost scarified surfaces. Here an influence could be noted from the works of Belgian and French artists, especially Maurice de Vlaminck
Maurice de Vlaminck
Maurice de Vlaminck was a French painter. Along with André Derain and Henri Matisse he is considered one of the principal figures in the Fauve movement, a group of modern artists who from 1904 to 1908 were united in their use of intense color.-Life:Maurice de Vlaminck was born in Paris to a family...
and Isidore Opsomer. These were the textural and stylistic influences which shaped Lucia Peka. Influenced by Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...
and Rembrandt, these artists paid particular attention to issues of light, coloring and texture. With naïve expression, painters preserved their closeness to nature, accenting mythological, historical, and traditional Latvian ethnic motifs and folk art.
After Kārlis Ulmanis
Karlis Ulmanis
Kārlis Augusts Vilhelms Ulmanis was a prominent Latvian politician in pre-World War II Latvia during the Latvian period of independence from 1918 to 1940.- Education and early career :Ulmanis studied agriculture at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich and...
’ coup in 1934, a new official Latvian government policy encouraged traditional realism. Artists were required to have a moral stance and nationalistic content in art works, monumentality and positivism, and to turn away from the influence of European art. Two effects of this policy were to discourage artistic freedom and encourage artists such as Peka to leave Latvia.
Once she had relocated to the US, Peka was an active member of several Latvian Diaspora
Latvian Diaspora
Among many international diasporas, this particular racial grouping is of Latvian nationals who lived outside of Latvia during the Soviet occupation. As more than 200,000 Latvian citizens died during World War II and the Nazi occupation, thousands of Latvians fled the country to become the diaspora...
art associations and regional artist groups, including: Copley Society of Art
Copley Society of Art
The Copley Society of art is America's oldest non-profit art association. It was founded in 1879 by the first graduating class of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and continues to play an important role in promoting its member artists and the visual arts in Boston...
(Copley, Mass.), Fairfax Virginia Art League, the American Latvian Artists Association, Artist's League of Central New Jersey, the National Association of Women Artists in New York, and the American Latvian Association
American Latvian Association
The American Latvian Association was founded on February 24, 1951. The ALA organization and its members lead and support global efforts to facilitate the peaceful and democratic development of Latvia by promoting understanding and support for Latvia through informational efforts in the USA...
of Rockville, Maryland.
Along with Mārtiņš Krūmiņš (1900–1992), Jānis Kalmīte
Janis Kalmite
Jānis Kalmīte was an expressionist painter and among the best-known artists in the Latvian post-World War II diaspora community. His name is associated with the development of a singular theme – the rija. Rijas, or threshing barns, were historically among the oldest structures on the traditional...
(1907–1996), Aleksandra Belcova
Aleksandra Belcova
Aleksandra Belcova was a Latvian and Russian painter.She studied at the Art School in Penza and the State Free Art Workshop in Petrograd...
(1892–1981) and Vija Celmins
Vija Celmins
Vija Celmins is an American artist.-Early life:Vija Celmins immigrated to the United States with her family from Latvia when she was ten years old. She and her family settled in Indiana...
(born 1938), Lucia Peka began to be seen as an expressionist
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
painter well-known in the World War II Latvian Diaspora
Latvian Diaspora
Among many international diasporas, this particular racial grouping is of Latvian nationals who lived outside of Latvia during the Soviet occupation. As more than 200,000 Latvian citizens died during World War II and the Nazi occupation, thousands of Latvians fled the country to become the diaspora...
community. Throughout their 50 years of exile from Latvia, these painters kept alive the folk themes of Latvian ethnic culture in the face of invasion and occupation by foreign powers. Peka and the others attempted to develop an expatriot Latvian national art, following in the footsteps of artists such as Ādams Alksnis
Adams Alksnis
Ādams Alksnis was a Latvian painter.Many of his works are displayed in the Latvian National Museum of Art.-External links:*...
, Teodors Ūders, and Vilhelms Purvitis
Vilhelms Purvitis
Vilhelms Purvītis was a landscape painter and educator who founded the Latvian Academy of Art and was its rector from 1919 to 1934....
.
Gallery
Interest in Peka's lifetime of work is steadily increasing as more becomes known about the extent of the Latvian Diaspora, and the artists who comprise it. Since the reestablishment of an independent Latvia in 1991, Latvian nationals have begun to catalogue and exhibit art from this period, which has become more valuable as Latvians attempt to reclaim missing parts of their culture.In a 1972 interview, Lucia Peka explained that her "outlook on life has always been bright, hopeful and positive with a relentless energy and movement." When asked about her preference for working with oils and the pallet knife, the artist compared her painting to "cooking with butter, both having a similar texture."
According to Dr. Ansis Karps of the Latvian National Museum of Art, Peka was, "always surrounded by music, and had a wonderfully sensitive and absorbing life as she sought to express feelings, desires and dreams through oil painting."
External links
- Boston University Artist History
- Notable Latvians
- Latvian Artists during Wartime
- Additional information about Latvian artists in Canada
- The Center for Latvian Diaspora Art (Diasporas Makslas Centrs)
- See the "Art in Exile" Chapter of "The Visual Arts in Latvia" at the Latvian Institute
- Examine the history of the "American Latvian Artists Association (ALMA)"
- Artist's Official Web Page
- Online Discussion of Lucia Peka Artistry and Impact
- Riga Dome Cathedral, Latvia - Official Site
- Martins Krumins, a Latvian-American Artist and friend of Lucia Peka.