Purvītis

The book "Purvītis" is a fundamental contribution to the study of the basic values of Latvian professional art and the confirmation of the high value of its most outstanding achievements, a great help in popularizing our cultural achievements.The name of Vilhelms Purvītis seems to be the only one that even a casually interested person knows in relation to Latvian art. It was also brilliantly revealed by the Baltic Symbolism art exhibition at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, which received excellent reviews, where the works of Vilhelms Purvītis stood out with their mastery and a unique, sovereign power of expression for the landscape genre, reminding of the international success of his works already during the master's youth in the turn of 19th/20th centuries and at the beginning of the 20th century.

Although over the years a larger number of publications devoted to this outstanding painter have accumulated, it must be admitted that until now none of them is able to provide a truly comprehensive and visually qualitative insight into his life and works. The new edition aims to fill this gap in the spirit of the master's 150th anniversary, which includes a large album of his works with an introduction by LNMM director Māra Lāce and dr. art. Kristiāna Ābele's in-depth and new revelations-rich study "Landscape with the painter" about the life and activities of Vilhelms Purvītis in art.

This edition aims to give an opportunity to see almost all of the master's known works both in Latvia - in museums and private collections - and in museum collections elsewhere. Both Kristiāna Ābele and Aija Brasliņa, creator of the Vilhelms Purvītis' jubilee exhibition and custodian of LNMM's painting funds, have identified the possible locations of the master's works, clarified the dating and evaluated their authenticity. As we know, the loss of the collection of works selected by Purvītis' for his own museum at the end of the Second World War is particularly tragic.

Book artist Inese Hofmane has contributed professionally excellent work to the creation of this book. In order for this edition to really achieve the goal set for it, it also needed high-quality printing, which was implemented by the Jelgava printing house.

The book "Purvītis" is a fundamental contribution to the study of the basic values of Latvian professional art and the confirmation of the high value of its most outstanding achievements, a great help in popularizing our cultural achievements.

The book was created thanks to the State Cultural Capital Fund, the Latvian National Art Museum, Arctic Paper and personal support of Jānis Zuzāns.