I am drawing Vilnius, Petersburg in our days,

but I am trying to depict that past,

which survived in the course of centuries,

I want to reveal perishability of matter as well as human feelings.

His father was Lithuanian, his mother was Russian. Born in Russia he lived there, then in Lithuania, the United States, resided for many years in England, France, Italy.

Mstislav Dobuzhinsky got art education in St. Petersburg: at the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts(1885 – 1887), at the studio of Lev Dmitriyev-Kavkazsky (1896 – 1899), in Munich (1899–1901) under famous at that time Andreas Aschbe and  Simon Hollósy.

In 1902 the artist joined “Mir Iskusstva” (World of Art). He became an exponent of the most characteristic features of the world-view and philosophy of this association alongside with its leading members – Aleksandr Benoise, Konstantin Somov and Leon Bakst. Graphic approach was characteristic feature of Dobuzhinsky’s art language. As many other Mir Iskusstva artists, he developed the art of line and silhouette. Dobuzhinsky generally worked with watercolours, pastel, gouache, pencil. He often combined these media. 

In 1924 Dobuzhinsky moved with his family to Lithuania and lived in Kaunas till 1939. Mstislav often travelled to Europe and the United States. At this time theatre played an important role in the artist’s life. He worked as a stage designer for Kaunas State Theatre. From 1929 to 1930 on Dobuzhinsky headed the studio of graphic and decorative painting at Kaunas School of Arts. From 1930 to 1933 on he taught at his own private studio. At this period he travelled a lot around Lithuania and made sketches of old architectural monuments.

The World War II changed artist’s fate. In 1939 Dobuzhinsky went to London, than to New York.

The exhibition “Old Lithuania” presents Mstislav Dobuzhinsky’s works of 1907 – 1939 and Lithuanian folk art from the collection of the National Art Museum of Lithuania. The collection of architectural landscapes of Lithuania was obtained by the Lithuanian Foundation (the USA) from the artist’s son Vsevolod Dobuzhinsky in 1983. In 2006 on the initiative of Vitautas Kamantas the council of the Lithuanian Foundation decided to donate the drawings to Lithuania. In 2007 they were passed to the National Art Museum of Lithuania in Vilnius. The cycle “Old Lithuania” is exhibited in Belarus for the first time. Mainly they are works of 1933 – 1934, portraying towns of Samogitia , which were sketched during artist’s journeys. Cityscape was of great art interest for Mstislav Dobuzhinsky.

Nowadays his works are valued not only for their high artistic qualities, but also as the views of old Lithuania, which exist now only in his drawings.

Dobuzhinsky’s art heritage is rich and manifold: paintings and graphic works, drawings for magazines, illustrations for classic and modern literature authors, theatrical scenery.

director of the National Art Museum of Lithuania