Miervaldis Polis (born 23 July 1948,

Riga Riga (; lv, Rīga , liv, Rīgõ) is the capital and largest city of Latvia and is home to 605,802 inhabitants which is a third of Latvia's population. The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava river where it meets the Ba ...

Latvia Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...

) is a

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

and performance artist. In the early 1970s, he and

Līga Purmale Līga Purmale (born 4 October 1948 in Dundaga, Latvian SSR) is a Latvian painter. At a young age she moved to Riga from the Latvian countryside to study painting, first at the Jānis Rozentāls Art High School and then at the Latvian Academy of ...

, his wife at the time, started a new trend of

photorealism Photorealism is a genre of art that encompasses painting, drawing and other graphic media, in which an artist studies a photograph and then attempts to reproduce the image as realistically as possible in another medium. Although the term can be ...

in Latvian painting. In the early 1980s, he turned to performance art, one of his most notable performances being ''The Bronze Man'', wherein he roamed the streets of

, in a

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...

suit, covered from head to toe in bronze

paint Paint is any pigmented liquid, liquefiable, or solid mastic composition that, after application to a substrate in a thin layer, converts to a solid film. It is most commonly used to protect, color, or provide texture. Paint can be made in many ...

. In the 1990s, after Latvia regained independence, Polis became known as the Latvian " court painter," receiving commissions to paint the portraits of the Latvian

elite In political and sociological theory, the elite (french: élite, from la, eligere, to select or to sort out) are a small group of powerful people who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege, political power, or skill in a group. D ...

, including former presidents Guntis Ulmanis and Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga.

References

1948 births Living people Artists from Riga Latvian painters Performance artists {{Latvia-painter-stub