M. K. Ciurlionis National Museum of Art
Kaunas art museum holding the world's largest collection of works by M. K. Ciurlionis.
The museum was founded in 1921 to house the paintings and graphic works of Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis, the composer and painter whose symbolist cycles are central to Lithuanian art. The collection outgrew its first premises and moved in 1936 into a purpose-built gallery on V. Putvinskio Street, designed by Vladimiras Dubeneckis with Karolis Reisonas and Kazimieras Krisciukaitis and completed after Dubeneckis's death. The building shares its site with the Vytautas the Great War Museum and faces a garden of memorial busts.
Alongside the Ciurlionis holdings, which run to several hundred paintings and drawings, the museum shows Lithuanian folk art, sacred art and European painting, prints and applied art. It is the parent institution of a network of branches in Kaunas and beyond, including the Devils' Museum, the Kaunas Picture Gallery, the Galaune House-Museum and the Ciurlionis memorial museum in Druskininkai. Temporary exhibitions in the main building range from historic Lithuanian art to contemporary international photography and installation.
Highlights
- The largest collection of paintings by M. K. Ciurlionis
- Purpose-built 1936 gallery on V. Putvinskio Street
- Lithuanian folk art, sacred art and European applied art
- Parent museum of branches across Kaunas and Druskininkai
