The Galaunė Family Museum

The Galaunė Family Museum

The Galaunė Family Museum

(M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art)

Contacts
Address: Vydūno al. 2, LT-50295, Kaunas.
Tel. (+370 ~ 37) 79 89 95.
E-mail: galauniunamai[at]gmail.com

Information for Visitor

Opening hours:
Visits by arrangement. Tel. (+370 ~ 37) 79 89 95.

Admission:
Entrance fee – 1 €;
Tour – 8 € (in Lithuanian), 12 € (in foreign language)
50% discount – schoolchildren, students, visitors with International student card (ISIC), military service, senior citizens.
Free entrance – preschool children, residents of children’s homes, disabled of I and II group, staff of museums of Lithuania, ICOM members, artists, students of art schools, students of Fine Art department of Vilnius Academy of Fine Arts and Vytautas Magnus University, journalists, AICA members, EU citizens September 1 through June 1 on Wednesdays.

Collection
Memorial flat of an opera singer Adelė Nezabitauskaitė-Galaunienė (1899–1962) and a museum worker, a historian of art, the director of M. K. Čiurlionis Art Museum of many years standing Paulius Galaunė (1890–1988), P. Galaunė's library, collections of graphic works.

Exposition
The exposition contains memorial rooms and a library, as well as P. Galaune’s collections of graphics, ex-libris, folk and art books. The display also depicts the history and activities of the “XXVII Book Lowers” Society.

Cultural, educational activity
Organization of annual reading from P. Galaunė's works.
Delivering lectures.
Organization of meetings with cultural workers.
Organization of soirees of museum workers.

Other news
The museum was opened in 1995 in the home of art historian and former director of M. K. Čiurlionis Art Museum Paulius Galaunė (1890–1988) and his wife, opera singer Adelė Nazabitauskaitė-Galaunienė (1899–1962). Built in 1934 (architect Arnas Funkas, 1898-1957), for a number of years, the house was the home of the signatory of the Act of Independence, diplomat and statesman Kazys Bizauskas (1892–1941).

Paulius Galaunė
P. Galaunė (1890–1988) art historian, graphic artist, museum curator, born in Pagaleziai, county of Ukmerge.
During 1910–1914 he studied at the Institute of Psychoneurology at St. Petersburg, Russia, and attended art schools in St. Petersburg and Moscow. While in the Russian army, he was member of the Lithuanian Central Committee.
Returning to Lithuania in 1918, he taught art, was curator of the State Museum, and negotiated the return of Lithuanian art treasures from Russia.
He studied museum science at the Ecole du Louvre in Paris in 1923–1924 and in 1924 was appointed director of the Ciurlionis Gallery and the Culture Museum in Kaunas.
He was a lecturer in art history at the Universities of Kaunas (1925–1940) and Vilnius (1940-1950, with interruptions); he headed the Department of Museum Science at the University of Vilnius from 1945-1951 and taught at the Art Institute of Vilnius.
Galaunė has distinguished himself as a populariser of Lithuanian folk art, organizing exhibitions in many European countries and in New York’s World’s Fair in 1939. He collected, classified and described many Lithuanian art objects and monuments. Owing to his efforts, a large number of paintings by M. K. Ciurlionis, the world famous visionary Lithuanian painter, were retrieved from abroad and from private owners to be housed in a special museum. His numerous articles on magazines of various nations deal mainly with Lithuanian folk art, architecture and M. K. Ciurlionis. After his retirement in 1951, he compiled, edited and prefaced six volumes on Lithuanian folk art.
He wrote more than 20 scholarly works, including Lietuvių liaudies menas (Lithuanian Folk Art, 1930); Lietuvių liaudies skulptūros problemos (Problems of Lithuanian Folk Sculpture, 1932), and a memoir, Muziejininko novelės (Stories of the Museum Man, 1937). A collection of his articles, called Dailes ir kulturos baruose (In the Swaths of Art and Culture), was published in Vilnius in 1970. As a graphic artist, he was a favored fantastic theme in his ex-librises and book covers.

Adelė Galaunienė (nee Nezabitauskaitė)
A. Galaunienė 1899–1962, coloratura soprano, born in Baidokai, countu of Kretinga.
In 1918 she graduated from the Harmonium Music and Drama School in Moscow.
In 1919 she married the art historian Paulius Galaunė. While living in Kaunas, together with other soloists and musicians, she began to organize the Lithuanian opera. Galaunienė sang the role of Violet in Verdi’s La Traviata at the opening performance on Dec. 31, 1920. During the ten years of her operatic career she sang no less than 20 title roles, and in the beginning because of a lack of soloists she also sang dramatic parts. From 1930–1944 she taught music, reviewed opera productions, and directed student and women’s choruses.
After World War II she again sang in the opera from 1945–1947, and from 1948–1949 she taught voice at the Music Conservatory in Kaunas.
She performed such roles as: Tamara (Rubinstein, Demon), Tatiana (Tchaikovsky, Eugene Onegin), Tosca (Puccini, Tosca), Gilda (Verdi, Rigoletto), Rosina (Rossini, The Barber of Seville), Neda (Leoncavallo, I. Pagliacci), Mimi (Puccini, La Boheme), Juliette (Offenbach, Tales of Hoffmann).

Photos from the Museum's funds