Tapytojas Pranas Domšaitis "išsigimusio meno" verpetuose

ENThe Victoria and Albert Museum in London stores the copy of the list of the so called “degenerate art”. It consists of 101 artworks confiscated by the Third Reich from the German State Museum in 1937–1938. The list with 15 996 positions was prepared by the Reich Ministry of Education and Propaganda (Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda) in 1941–1942. In 1996 the list was handed over to the Museum by Elfriede Fischer, the widow of collector Harry Fischer. The document is stored in the Museum’s National Library of Art as part of the collection of H. Fischer. In 2014 the Victorian and Albert Museum digitised the list and published it online. The two volumes of the press release provide invaluable information about confiscated paintings, graphic art, sculptures and their fate. According to the list, during the “degenerate art” campaign, nine artworks of expressionist artist Pranas Domšaitis (1880–1965) were removed from German museums. Since all of them are destroyed or their location is unknown, and image of only one painting is known, the article attempts to identify the motifs of requisite artworks from the short description in the list. Research is made using comparative analysis on the basis of the analogous or similar-period, subject, and title artworks which are in collections of the Lithuanian Art Museum. Also the development of “degenerate art” campaign and Domšaitis’ life in the Third Reich is discussed in general terms.