Raimonds Staprans ( lv, Raimonds Staprāns) is a well-known artist and

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

both in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

and his native Latvia. Staprans was born in 1926 in

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 ...

. He now lives in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, California with his wife, scientist Ilona Staprāns. He has two daughters, Maretta Staprāns-Barlow and Alda Staprāns-Mednis. After living in occupied Latvia and in a

Displaced Persons camp A refugee camp is a temporary Human settlement, settlement built to receive refugees and people in refugee-like situations. Refugee camps usually accommodate displaced people who have fled their home country, but camps are also made for interna ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Staprans immigrated to the United States with his family in 1947. He studied art at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

under

Alexander Archipenko Alexander Porfyrovych Archipenko (also referred to as Olexandr, Oleksandr, or Aleksandr; uk, Олександр Порфирович Архипенко, Romanized: Olexandr Porfyrovych Arkhypenko; February 25, 1964) was a Ukrainian and American ...

and

Mark Tobey Mark George Tobey (December 11, 1890 – April 24, 1976) was an American painter. His densely structured compositions, inspired by Asian calligraphy, resemble Abstract expressionism, although the motives for his compositions differ philosophi ...

, then moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to begin graduate studies at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. He studied with

Hans Hofmann Hans Hofmann (March 21, 1880 – February 17, 1966) was a German-born American painter, renowned as both an artist and teacher. His career spanned two generations and two continents, and is considered to have both preceded and influenced Abstrac ...

and

Karl Kasten Karl Albert Kasten (March 5, 1916 – May 3, 2010) was a painter-printmaker-educator in the San Francisco Bay Area. Early life Kasten, fourth child of Ferdinand Kasten and his wife Barbara Anna Kasten, grew up in San Francisco's Richmond D ...

, among others, and graduated with a

Masters of Fine Arts A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.) is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts admini ...

in 1954. Staprans began exhibiting his art in the Maxwell Galleries in San Francisco. He currently exhibits at the Hackett , Mill Gallery in San Francisco and at the Peter Mendenhall Gallery in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

. Staprans' work is held in the permanent collections in the

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF), comprising the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park and the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, is the largest public arts institution in the city of San Francisco. The permanent collection of the ...

, the

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, California, Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Pa ...

, the

San Jose Museum of Art The San José Museum of Art (SJMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum in downtown San Jose, downtown San Jose, California, United States. Founded in 1969, the museum holds a permanent collection with an emphasis on West Coast of the United Sta ...

, and the

Portland Art Museum The Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon, United States, was founded in 1892, making it one of the oldest art museums on the West Coast and seventh oldest in the US. Upon completion of the most recent renovations, the Portland Art Museum becam ...

, among others. A career retrospective of his art opened at the Pasadena Museum of California Art in March, 2006, was shown at the Hackett-Freedman Gallery and traveled to Riga, Latvia where it was exhibited in the

Latvian National Museum of Art The Latvian National Museum of Art ( lv, Latvijas Nacionālais mākslas muzejs) is the richest collection of national art in Latvia. It houses more than 52,000 works of art reflecting the development of professional art in the Baltic area and in ...

later that year. A 60-year retrospective exhibit entitled "Full Spectrum: Paintings by Raimonds Staprans," opened in June, 2017 at the

Crocker Art Museum The Crocker Art Museum is the oldest art museum in the Western United States, located in Sacramento, California. Founded in 1885, the museum holds one of the premier collections of Californian art. The collection includes American works dating f ...

in Sacramento, California and then moved to the San Jose Museum of Art in San Jose, California in February, 2018. Staprans' skillfully constructed still life and landscape paintings are notable for the artist's sensitive response to light and color. A recent review of his work exhibited in Los Angeles compared the "tasteful seriousness" of his paintings to that of Cézanne. Staprans is said to examine the "architecture" of everyday objects in his art using explosive color and flattened compositions, creating a "tension between representation and abstraction that plays with viewers' expectations." Staprans is also an accomplished playwright. Most of his plays are set in Latvia during the 20th century. His play ''"The Freezing"'' was produced in 1979 by the San Francisco Little Theater and the Latvian National Theater in 1980. His 1989 play, ''"Four Days in June"'', depicted the

Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940 The Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940 refers to the military occupation of the Republic of Latvia by the Soviet Union under the provisions of the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany and its Secret Additional Protocol signed in A ...

. It was performed in Riga to more than 100 sold-out audiences, and later won first prize in the Baltic Theatre Festival. ''"Four Days in June"'' is regarded as having played an integral part in the pro-democracy movement in Latvia during the momentous changes following the end of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

. In 2003, Staprans was awarded Latvia's highest civilian honor, the

Order of the Three Stars Order of the Three Stars ( lv, Triju Zvaigžņu ordenis) is the highest civilian order awarded for meritorious service to Latvia. It was established in 1924 in remembrance of the founding of Latvia. Its motto is "Per aspera ad astra", meaning "Thr ...

, the Latvian equivalent of the United States

Presidential Medal of Freedom The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian award of the United States, along with the Congressional Gold Medal. It is an award bestowed by the president of the United States to recognize people who have made "an especially merito ...

. An extensive interview with Raimonds Staprans was conducted by the Archives of American Art,

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

, by Paul Karlstrom in 1997. Karlstrom later published a fully illustrated book entitled ''"Raimonds Staprans: Art of Tranquility and Turbulence"''.

Selected exhibitions

*February–May 2018 San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose *June–October 2017 Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento *2016 Latvian National Museum of Art, Riga, Latvia *April 2013 Peter Mendenhall Gallery, Los Angeles *April 2011 Hackett Mill Gallery, San Francisco *March, 2009 Hackett-Freedman Gallery, San Francisco *2008 Peter Mendenhall Gallery, Los Angeles; *2006 State Museum of Art, Riga, Latvia; Hackett-Freedman Gallery, San Francisco; Pasadena Museum of California Art, Pasadena; *2003–2004 Hackett-Freedman Gallery, San Francisco; *2001 Hackett-Freedman Gallery, San Francisco; *1999 Mendenhall Gallery, Beverly Hills; *1998 Maxwell Galleries, San Francisco; *1997 Kunstmesse, Cologne; Galerie Redmann, Berlin; Mendenhall Gallery, Pasadena; *1996 Maxwell Galleries, San Francisco; Mendenhall Gallery, Pasadena; *1994 Marburg Art Center, Marburg, Germany; Galerie Redmann, Berlin; Maxwell Galleries, San Francisco; *1993 Galerie Redmann, Berlin.

Selected exhibitions

References

Further reading