Born Franz Domscheit in the Kingdom of Prussia on August 15, 1880 and changing his name to its Lithuanian equivalent 40 years later, Pranas Domšaitis spent the first 27 years of his life living and working on his parents’ farm and painting in his spare time before slowly finding a fame of sorts. Perhaps best known for having three of his paintings displayed at the infamous 1937 Degenerate Art Exhibition in Munich and all his other works removed from German galleries by the Nazis, Domšaitis ended his days in rural South Africa on November 14, 1965 after leaving Lithuania soon after the war. Fêted by Edvard Munch among others, the artist’s association with Klaipėda is tenuous to say the least, a magnificent stroke of luck for the city because his paintings, of which many are on permanent display here, are infinitely more beautiful and mature than most of the work by his Lithuanian contemporaries. A branch of the Lithuanian Art Museum, this huge gallery displays many other works and is more than worth the small change it costs to enter.
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