Petronėlė Gerlikienė
“She had an absolute sense of colour that is so rare among painters.”
Petronėlė Gerlikienė, maiden name Kromelytė (June 19th, 1905 – March 14th, 1979), Lithuanian painter and textile artist. She lived all her life in a small village in northwestern Lithuania. After retirement, she moved to Vilnius to live with her son's family and began to focus on creative work – textile and painting.
Artist Petronėlė Gerlikienė in her son's studio. Vilnius, 1977
P. Gerlikiene began creating large-scale embroidered tapestries in 1972, painting in 1976, and participating in exhibitions in 1974. Petronele Gerlikiene's art has won recognition and numerous awards in Lithuania and abroad. Many of her textiles and paintings have been acquired for the collections of national Lithuanian art museums and galleries.
Petronėlė Gerlikienė, “A Red Tree”, 1977. Wool, embroidery, appliqué. 180x150 cm.
The impetus and inspiration for her work was a vision of her own house. She envisioned its interior decorated with large-scale tapestries and paintings – she will find a good man and marry again, she will create there, she will be safe, she will be happy... And she set off to create them. Petronėlė was always fascinated with large trees – especially oaks and maples and used them as motifs for her textiles An Oak, A Rowan, A Maple Tree and A Red Tree. In several short years of intense creativity, she left us a small but exceptionally authentic creative heritage.
Petronlėlė Gerlikienė, “The Song Festival”, 1976. Linen, embroidery, applique. 200x180 cm. Lithuanian National Museum of Art
“Just as though she had lived in the city all her life, Petronėlė went to visit all the exhibition houses alone. “An exhibition, what do you know? It’s full of silliness. I can’t understand how they can see a tree with its roots if they are in the ground, and, what’s more, show them to people. I’m gonna make a carpet that’s gonna be much better than what you can find there in your exhibitions,” – Petronėlė said on coming home. She was smiling, her head covered with a reddish headscarf tilted back. Her hands kept stroking a strand of yellow thread, as if in the twilight of the evening she could already picture the walls of her house covered with embroidered tapestries. Petronėlė told her daughter-in-law¹ that she was going to embroider a tapestry, and got down to work – just like this, gradually changing the colour of the thread, the direction of the stitch. When someone would ask her how she knew how she should work, she would answer that she had seen many oaks in her life. Petronėlė made the tapestry “An Oak” without difficulty, deploring the oaks that were cut out in Mažrimai². She embroidered people. The one on the left initially had a bottle of vodka in his hands. However, when the works were being selected for a national exhibition of folk art, A. Kireilienė³ suggested “unstitching” the bottle, for it didn’t represent the Soviet reality and the tapestry would not be accepted. Petronėlė substituted the bottle of vodka with a bouquet of flowers.”
¹ Marijona Danutė Gerlikienė (now Čiplė), an art critic.
² Mažrimai – village in Northwestern Lithuania where Petronele Gerlikiene lived.
³ A. Kireilienė – the head of the fine arts department at the Palace of Folk Art.
Petronėlė Gerlikienė, “A Rowan”, 1974. Wool, embroidery, applique. 188x147 cm. Lithuanian National M. K. Čiurlionis Museum of Art
Later she also embroidered scenes from the Bible – Adam and Eve in Paradise (Man and Woman). About its design and idea Petronele said:
“I need to have a very translucent yellow background in order to embroider Paradise. Paradise is above the houses and only the thin branches of trees covered in blossoms and fruit support Adam and Eve. Adam is naked and worry-free. His soft and relaxed body, with clearly marked Adam’s apple, seems to sway weightlessly in the air. With his hands on the stomach, he moves his toes enjoying Paradise. Eve by his side is interpreted very differently, as a contrast to Adam, she is full of anxiety: her skirt is so bouffant... The woman must always be more beautiful than the man. She holds a bouquet of forget-me-nots. Eve’s body is tense, she is focused and ready – she knows what awaits her. ”
Petronėlė Gerlikienė, “Man and Woman”, 1975. Cotton, embroidery, applique, 145x120 cm. Lithuanian National Museum of Art
She was encouraged by her daughter-in-law, who brought canvasses or cardboards, brushes, and oil and tempera paint from her son's (painter, portraitist Pranciškus Gerlikas) studio. P. Gerlikiene was amazed that it was so easy to paint – quick and almost effortless, she said. The large textiles often took a long time to complete and her back would ache after sitting and embroidering for hours on end. She always had a clearly formed idea for a tapestry or painting, its composition, colours... She painted fast, hurrying as if in oblivion, without sketches, dabbing paint directly from the tube, mixing the colours right on the cardboard or canvas. First, with a dry brush, with its stem (“why stroke and daub needlessly”), Petronėlė would outline the place of the main character. She only used a palette for putting paint tubes on it. Like this, in one fell swoop, she created her first painting, Under the Maple, Under the Green One…
The very next day she demanded a large piece of cardboard – she intended to paint The Ship – Noah’s Ark. Petronele outlined a big oval – the ship and began placing people aboard. First of all, she drew Noah and his seven daughters, then animals and birds, a couple of each. Noah and his daughters are rowing. Noah often turns and watches his eldest daughter at the stern, because his wife is already very old, she sits by the chest with her cane. It is how the human race survived, Petronele said...
“This is after the song “Under the maple, under the green one, there’s a young lad lying…” and, of course, a young girl is handing her heart to him. The girl’s heart is always bigger than the boy’s. ”
Petronėlė Gerlikienė, “The Ship”, 1976. Cardboard, oil, tempera. 115x175 cm. Lithuanian National Museum of Art
Petronele Gerlikiene’s most mature and emotionally strongest works, The Sorrowful One, A Mother, The Virgin, and Benefaction, Picking Cherries are broad-brush works and extremely poignant. Each of these paintings have a powerful sense of wholeness and integrity of vision. The expressiveness of her brushstroke and the use of strong colour combinations with such conviction allow the comparison of her paintings to works of professional painters. Moreover, Gerlikiene’s works often surpass those made by professionals in terms of originality of the vision, uniqueness of interpretation, and humour.
Petronėlė Gerlikienė, “Picking Cherries”, 1976. Cardboard, oil, tempera. 115×87 cm.
In 1985 Petronėlė Gerlikienė’s artwork included in The Encyclopaedia of Naive Art (World Encyclopaedia of Naive art // Yugoslavia, Belgrade, 1984, 267–289 p.), she is a National Treasure of Lithuania. Her paintings and textiles were exhibited around the world. One of the highlights – an exhibition of her textiles at the Chicago Cultural Center (Embroidered Myths and Everyday Stories, 2008, Chicago Cultural Centre, Michigan Avenue gallery, Chicago, USA), and are in the permanent collections of the national museums in Lithuania: The Lithuanian National Museum of Art, the National M. K. Čiurlionis Art Museum, the Modern Art Centre in Vilnius, Rokiškis Museum and elsewhere.
Petronėlė Gerlikienė, "A Mother", 1978. Cardboard, tempera, 105x85 cm. MO Museum, Vilnius.
“I was very little when my mother died, – remembered Petronėlė. – Everybody said that my sister looked just like my mother; she was just as beautiful. I wasn’t pretty. And how beautiful were my mother’s braids! She had reddish hair, like mine when I was young; she used to braid her hair and arrange it in a few rings on her head. From the trail of her train in the sandy road, townspeople could tell that Kromelienė had already gone to church.”
“Mother was an educated woman. Even though she knew many languages, she had problems communicating to her servants in Lithuanian. The husband often travelled to America, just as before. Once the innkeeper came running to Marijona Kromelienė’s house and said: “Run to the town, your Jonas is about to run off to America with his girlfriend.” Marijona had just washed her hair. She left the house immediately with her hair still wet, but snatching a hanger on the way. Yelling, she lambasted her husband, but was barely able to return home due to a severe headache. At the time she was seven months pregnant with her sixth child. On getting home, Marijona lay down and never got up.”
“The witnesses claimed that for a long time after Marijona’s death, every evening at the same hour the door would burst open noisily and her beautifully dressed ghost would enter the house. It would cross the house without looking round and disappear, dissolve into the wall. The neighbours would come to see the wonder, and Jonas took to drink.”
My grandmother Petronele Gerlikiene survived the two World Wars, Soviet occupation and collectivization, riches and poverty, deaths of two of her husbands, and losing an unborn child due to violence… I think no one said it better than my godmother, art critic Gražina Kliaugienė, who recognized Petronele's talent early on, followed and appreciated her work every step of the way, and encouraged her participation in exhibitions. She summed it up in her article on the posthumous P. Gerlikiene’s exhibition:
“Petronėlė Gerlikienė entered Lithuanian art at quite a venerable age. Her appearance in the world of art was rather unexpected, and the stay – brief. Nevertheless, she left a small but exceptionally authentic creative heritage. The spontaneous artistic power that manifested itself in the last years of her life and eventually transformed into an individual world of poetic visions was a gift of destiny for her as well as all of us. The archaic firmness of her work and the serene assuredness of her single truth revealed a personality of a rare unanimity that, regardless of any hindrances from the side, managed to let the clear and spiritualized image of life’s wholeness break through the commonplace. The themes of Gerlikienė’s tapestries and paintings appear basic and simple; however, through the self-evident, there emerges the outline of an extremely individual and imaginative world. It is real poetry, the essence of which is beyond the exactness of words. When looking at Gerlikienė’s works one unconsciously remembers S. Riauba, S. Šepka, and those nameless talents of former epochs able to look through the surface of reality into its very depth with ingenuous wisdom.
In Gerlikienė’s works, everything around and within us unites in one indissoluble layer. Nothing is separate in the bright light of her visions – trees and birds have human eyes, nature as well as humans lives and dies only temporarily, and the moment of time quietly recedes into infinity. The artist’s extraordinary vitality is expressed in a free, expressive, and perfect way. There are neither coincidences nor unimportant details in Gerlikienė’s works. The painter’s artistic flair, free of the meticulous need of perfection and the great deceit of trying-to-make-it-look-like-it’s-real, provided her with the elemental strength, and the freedom of colour and drawing controlled by a sensual impulse. The latter qualities distinguished Petronėlė Gerlikienė’s work from the common specimens of modern folk painting.
Petronėlė Gerlikienė’s impulsive nature manifested itself most vigorously in her paintings in 1977–1978 when her works became marked by shadows of apprehension. The celebration of life pulsating from her early works that had fascinated with its effervescent energy, omnipresent flourishing and abundance (“A Ship”, “A Rowan”, “An Oak Tree”), now became filled with intense but extremely powerfully expressed tragedy and frightening omens whose unseeing eyes were full of sorrow (“A Mother”, “The Sorrowful One”, “Looking at the Sun”).
The world that Petronėlė Gerlikienė saw in her visions will not be added to or continued, but its strength of emotion and inner freedom – the core of true creativity – will never cease to appeal to us.”
Below: Petronėlė Gerlikienė's first personal exhibition at the City Planning Institute in Vilnius, 1977. In this silent monochrome video, you can see Petronėlė Gerlikienė, art critic Gražina Kliaugienė, painter, professor Antanas Gudaitis and others from the Lithuanian cultural and artists community; moments from the opening Video: M. Dimbelis.
Publications:
”Petronėlė Gerlikienė”, Vilnius, 2005.
Biography, album, catalogue raisonné;
Compilers: Jurgita Gerlikaite and Darijus Gerlikas.
Text: Jurgita Gerlikaite. Hardcover, in English and Lithuanian,
154 p.: illustr. – ISBN 9986-9189-6-0
Price: 35 Eur.
Please contact me if you’d like to purchase the book.
List of most important exhibitions and awards
Personal exhibitions
1977 the first personal exhibition of paintings and textiles, the City Planning Institute, Vilnius
1977 paintings and textiles, Lithuanian Art Museum, Vilnius
1979 a posthumous exhibition of paintings and textiles, Lithuanian Art Museum, Vilnius
1985 paintings and textiles, in commemoration of the artist’s 80th birthday. The M. Mažvydas National Library, Vilnius
1997 paintings and textiles, Vilnius’ City Hall, Lithuania
2001 paintings and tapestries, The House of A. & P. Galaunė, Kaunas, Lithuania
2005 Petronėlė Gerlikienė – 100, Museum of the Radvilas Palace, Vilnius
2005 Petronėlė Gerlikienė – 100, National M. K. Čiurlionis Art Museum, Kaunas, Lithuania
2008 Embroidered Myths and Everyday Stories, Michigan Avenue Galleries, Chicago Cultural Centre, Chicago, USA
2012 Petronele Gerlikiene, paintings and textiles, Creative Solutions Gallery, London, UK
Petronėlė Gerlikienė, “A Tree Laden with Fruit”, 1977. Cardboard, oil, 100x72 cm.
Group exhibitions and awards:
1974 National exhibition of Folk Art. Winner of the 3rd prize, Vilnius Exhibition Palace
1977 National Exhibition of Folk Art. Laureate of the 1st prize, Lithuanian Art Museum, Vilnius
1977 an exhibition of folk painters and craftsmen of the Soviet Union. Winner of the 2nd prize, Moscow
1979 National Exhibition of Folk Painting, Lithuanian Art Museum, Vilnius
1994 an exhibition of Folk Art, The Lithuanian National Museum of Art, Vilnius
2000 an international Exhibition Of Naïve Art, Stadshof Museum, Zwolle, Holland
2008 Generations, Lithuanian Ciurlionis Cultural Centre, Chicago, USA
2011 Petronele Gerlikiene, paintings and textiles, Creative Solutions Gallery, London, UK
2018 All Art Is About Us, Modern Art Centre (MO), Vilnius, Lithuania
Bibliography
Apanavičienė L., „Petronėlės Gerlikienės kilimai Čikagos kultūros centre“ // Čikagos aidas. 2008 01 26.
Čiplytė D., „Siuvinėti kilimai ir tapyba“ // Kultūros barai. 1986, Nr. 2, p. 75–76.
“Fabulous Fabrics” // Pioneer Press, Chicago News-Star. 2008 01 26
Gerlikaitė J., “A Gift from Fate” // Lithuania in the World. 2007, Nr. 6, Vol 15, p. 48-53.
Gerlikaitė J., Gerlikas D., album „Petronėlė Gerlikienė.“ Vilnius, 2005
Gerlikaitė J., „Petronėlė Gerlikienė: savos tiesos žinojimas“ // Šiaurės Atėnai. 2005 06 17.
Gerlikaitė J., Petronėlė Gerlikienė ‒ gyvenimas ir kūryba // Liaudies kultūra. 2018. Nr. 3.
Gerlikienė D., „Petronėlė Gerlikienė. Tradicija šiuolaikinėje Lietuvių liaudies dailėje.“ Straipsnių rinkinys // Šviesa. Kaunas, 1982, p. 77–78.
Gerlikienė D., „Viečnoje drevo žizni“ // Dekorativnoje iskustvo SSSR. 1980, Nr. 11, p. 32
Kargaudienė A., „Šalia Petronėlės Gerlikienės gyvybės medžio“ // Liaudies kultūra. 2001, Nr. 3.
Kliaugienė G., „Ir tai yra gražu iš tikrųjų“ // Kultūros barai. 1979, Nr. 2, p. 36–37.
Masako J., „Petronėlė Gerlikienė“ // Arena, Nr. 6, 2009, p. 531-533.
Mažrimienė V., „Rojus yra virš namų“ // Nemunas. 2005 07 14, Nr. 27
Shkarovskaya N., “Gerlikiene Petronele“ // World Encyclopedia of Naïve Art. 1984, p. 267- 289.
Skromanienė D., „Petronėlė Gerlikienė“ // Visuotinė lietuvių enciklopedija. 2004, t. 6, p. 589–599.
World Encyclopaedia of Naïve art, Petronele Gerlikiene // Yugoslavia, Belgrade, 1984, 267–289 p.
Links
Petronėlė Gerlikienė, “Benefaction”, 1977. Cardboard, oil, 70x50 cm. Private collection.