Title: A woman outside a hut
Medium: Oil on board
Signed
Unframed: 29cm x 39cm
Framed: 52cm x 62cm
Pranas Domsaitis was an introvert that spoke little about his work. The only clues that we have to his life are that which he left us in his artworks. He often referred to himself as a traveller that never settled anywhere. Domesaitis lived through two world wars and because he came from Postnicken, East Prussia, was unable to return to his homeland.
Because of his studies in Köningsberg and Berlin, as well as extensive traveling throughout Europe at the start of the 20th Century, he was greatly influenced by the modernist art movements in Europe pre and post First World War. The most visible influence was that of German Expressionism. As explained by Verloren van Themaat (1976:6) he had an “interest in the spiritual, in the essential soul of things.”
Domsaitis arrived in South Africa in 1949 at the age of 69. He found his new environment stimulating and painted prolifically towards the end of his career with his work becoming more expressionist and abstracted over time. Travelling throughout the country, he painted rural scenes reminiscent of the peasant culture of his homeland, with indigenous farmers working the fields and tending to their livestock.
