Danutė Jonkaitytė (b. 1951) is a graphic artist, master of drawing, experimenter, organizer of students’ exhibitions and a beloved professor (she has been teaching graphic art, composition and drawing and supervising bachelor and master theses at the Department of Textile Art and Design at Vilnius Academy of Arts since 1991, Associate Professor since 1995).
Having debuted in 1978, the artist participated in a number of exhibitions in Lithuania and abroad (Latvia, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Slovenia, Germany, Belgium, the USA, Canada, Japan, France, Italy, Uruguay, Australia). Most of her solo exhibitions were held in Vilnius, yet several shows were also displayed abroad (Canada and the USA). A number of artworks are part of different museum collections at the Lithuanian National Museum of Art (Vilnius), M.K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art (Kaunas), MO Museum (Vilnius), Foundation of the Lithuanian Artists’ Association (Vilnius), Museum Ludwig (Cologne, Germany), Istituto Internazionale Di Cultura (Catania, Italy), Museum of Modern Art (Warsaw, Poland), Lithuanian Art Gallery Čiurlionis (Chicago, USA), Eesti Kunstimuuseum (Tallinn, Estonia), Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (Moscow, Russia), private collectors in Lithuania and other countries.
Only a small part of the artworks created are displayed in the Artifex gallery, yet the exhibition reflects the main phases of the artist’s work and the album Danutė Jonkaitytė issued in 2022. The project was initiated and implemented by the Department of Textile Art and Design of the Vilnius Academy of Arts (project coordinator Severija Inčirauskaitė-Kriaunevičienė, designer Gedas Čiuželis, compiler and text author Dr. Danutė Zovienė).
In Lithuanian printmaking, Danutė Jonkaitytė’s oeuvre is inseparable from the tradition of classical lithography and its blossoming in the 1970s–80s. Man’s Head I–III (1983), That Day I–IV and Two Together I–VII (1989–1992) presented in the exhibition bear witness to the artist’s maturity and craftsmanship which led to worldwide acclaim: Danutė Jonkaitytė took the main prize at the 5th Tallinn Print Triennial (Estonia) in 1980, National Artist Association of Hungary award and the Miklos Kaplar medal at the 10th International Graphic Art Symposium, Haidubesermen, Hungary, in 1983, the Eduard Wiiralt Prize at the 8th Tallinn Print Triennial (Estonia) in 1986, Honorary Medal at International Biennial of Small Graphic Art Forms, Lodz, Poland, in 1989, the Jury prize at the International Print Triennial in Krakow, Poland, in 2000. In 1997, she was also the only Lithuanian artist to have her works presented in the Kanagawa Culture Festival Exhibition The Prints of the World in Japan. Danutė Jonkaitytė’s lithograph Two Together was included in the select company of such world-renowned artists as Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Henry Moore, Albín Brunovský, Victor Vasarely, Roman Opałka, Pierre Soulages, David Hockney, Andy Warhol, and others.
The series Lines I–VIII (1993–1994) exhibited in the gallery represents another phase of the artist’s work where the dramatic contrasts of black and white in the lithographs are replaced with the emphasized aesthetics in linocut. Purified composition, empty space, trajectories of lonely lines, and repetition are creating the impression of silent talk.
A new milestone on the creative path is marked with the engravings ‘A Gift for Danutė (1995) created on handmade paper given as a gift by her colleague Vytautas Jurkūnas (Jr.). Eventually, this led to the turn from classical graphics to experiments. The series A State of Being I–VI (1997), and A Sense I–XIV (1999) created in authored technique transcends the two-dimensional space of the traditional printmaking sheet, embracing the materiality of the sculptural form.
From expressionism to minimalism, from classics to experiments – this creative path of Danutė Jonkaitytė is revealed both in the exhibition and the book.
Dr. Danutė Zovienė