Domicėlė Tarabildienė (1912,

Andrioniškis Andrioniškis is a town in Anykščiai District Municipality, in Utena County, in northeast Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on ...

1985,

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...

) was a

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

n photographer, graphic artist and book illustrator. Domicėlė Tarabildaitė was born in Andrioniškis, then in

Kovno Governorate Kovno Governorate was an administrative-territorial unit (''guberniya'') of the Russian Empire, with its capital in Kovno (Kaunas). It was formed on 18 December 1842 by Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, Nicholas I from the western part of Vilna Govern ...

, one of nine children in her family. After graduating from Panevėžys Gymnasium, Tarabildienė studied in

Kaunas Kaunas (; ) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius, the fourth largest List of cities in the Baltic states by population, city in the Baltic States and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaun ...

from 1929 to 1935 and specialized in sculpture, which she studied with

Juozas Zikaras Juozas Zikaras (November 18, 1881 – November 10, 1944) was a Lithuanian sculptor and artist, who created the design for pre-war Lithuanian litas coins. He is considered to be one of the first professional Lithuanian sculptors. Biography He was ...

. Her graduation work was rated as excellent, and she was awarded a fellowship to continue her study abroad. In 1937, she went to Paris, together with her husband Petras Tarabildas and her oldest son Arunas. Two other children, Giedrę and Ramon, stayed back in Lithuania. In 1937, she won a medal for illustration at the Paris International Exhibition. Subsequently, Tarabildienė studied sculpture for two years at

École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs The École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs (; ÉnsAD) also known as Arts Decos' and École des Arts décoratifs, is a public grande école of art and design, constituent member of PSL Research University. The school is located in the R ...

. She also traveled around Southern Europe. When World War II started, Tarabildienė was still in Paris, and she went back to Lithuania to reunite with the two children. Subsequently, Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union. Tarabildienė was a member of the Lithuanian Roerikh Society, which was run in Kaunas between 1935 and 1940 by the followers of

Nicholas Roerich Nikolai Konstantinovich Rerikh (), better known as Nicholas Roerich (; October 9, 1874 – December 13, 1947), was a Russian painter, writer, archaeologist, theosophist, philosopher, and public figure. In his youth he was influenced by Russ ...

. In 1930, Tarabildienė became interested in photography, which did not exist in Lithuania as an art before her. She learned many photographic techniques which distorted the conventional view of the image, such as

soft focus In photography, soft focus is a lens flaw, in which the lens forms images that are blurred due to uncorrected spherical aberration. A soft focus lens deliberately introduces spherical aberration which blurs fine texture in the image while reta ...

double exposure In photography and cinematography, a multiple exposure is the superimposition of two or more exposures to create a single image, and double exposure has a corresponding meaning in respect of two images. The exposure values may or may not be id ...

. She first had a preference for staged self-portraits. She made some photomontages as well. Experimental photography was not considered a way to earn the living in Lithuania in the 1930s, and she abandoned photography completely after the war. Since 1935, she was mostly working in graphics, including book illustration. Starting from 1940, when she first got a major prize for her work (The State Prize of the savings banks), Tarabildienė was considered the most influential Lithuanian graphical artist. She developed a special technique to illustrate folkloric motives, and she exerted a lot of influence of the younger artists. In particular, during the Soviet period artists were generally not allowed to travel abroad, and Tarabildienė's style became one of the standards in Lithuania. In 1950, her first major solo exhibition was held in Kaunas. In 1972, she was awarded the State Prize of the Lithuanian SSR, and in 1974 was made the People's Artist of the Lithuanian SSR. A big exhibition showing about 120 works of Tarabildienė was held in Vilnius in 2012, celebrating 100 years since her birth.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tarabildiene, Domicele 1912 births 1985 deaths Burials at Antakalnis Cemetery People from Anykščiai District Municipality People from Kovno Governorate 20th-century Lithuanian illustrators Lithuanian women illustrators Soviet illustrators Lithuanian women photographers