“From the outbreak of the Russian aggression against Ukraine, the community of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art resorted to all possible means to lend a helping hand to the colleagues in Ukraine struggling with the hardships of the war. By the end of 2022, we alreay agreed with Mr. Taras Voznyak, director of the Borys Voznytsky Lviv National Art Gallery, to evacuate the masterpieces of the main Ukrainian museums to the storage facilities of the LNMA. Following the implementation of this plan, in 2023, immediately after the relocation of these artworks to Vilnius, we started arranging the unplanned exhibitions of the masterpieces from the collections of Ukrainian museums. By now we have offered eight such events by different subdivisions in Vilnius! This year these brilliant art pieces will reach the art lovers in the seaport town of Lithuania, and in Palanga. We have high hopes that these encounters with art will also serve as a reminder that this war is not yet over, so Ukraine remains very much in need of our support,” says Dr Arūnas Gelūnas, director general of the LNMA.  

“The masterpieces of European painting from the 16th – 19th centuries from the collections of the Borys Voznytsky Lviv National Art Gallery will expand, in a meaningful way, the Clock and Watch Museum’s exhibitions on the development of the forms of art. Visitors to the museum will have an opportunity to appreciate the heritage of the world’s beauty and to broaden significantly their knowledge of the history of art, “ Romualdas Martinkus, director of the Clock and Watch Museum of the LNMA shares his enthusiasm about the event.  

“The Lithuanian National Museum of Art started providing help to the brothers and sisters in Ukraine from day one of the war. Museums in Ukraine were supplied with materials and equipment for the protection of artworks, together with Strong Together, organized deliveries of power generators. Protection measures of the artworks evacuated to Lithuania were taken, and the process of their examination, digitization, conservation and exhibiting started. The Dream Team of the LNMA, hand in hand with the volunteers of the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union, the police force of Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania, with the custom officers and border guards, and with our partners from different countries, supporters and multiple helping hands whom we THANK sincerely, we have put together an entire series of art from the Ukrainian museums. In the year 2025, these events are to continue in Klaipėda and Palanga. Three Ukrainian exhibitions will be hosted by the coastal subdivisions of the LNMA, and the first of them is the upcoming exhibition at the Clock and Watch Museum in Klaipėda showcasing the masterpieces from the Lviv National Art Gallery of Art of the name of Borys Voznytsky,” shares his insider’s perspective one the exhibition’s curators, Skaistis Mikulionis.  

The art collections linking Lithuania and Ukraine  

The curators of the exhibition note that the museum collections of the old art in Ukraine and Lithuania have many aspects they share. Many of them come from private collections, marked by the names of the families that played a role of consequence in the history of both countries: the Potocki, the Sapieha, the Tyszkiewicz, the Branicki, the Pšezdzeckiai (Przeździeccy), the Višniovèckiai (Wiśniowieccy) are the names. By inheritance, in building friendship ties or among blood or interest related individuals, or, just like now, in the face of misfortune, these collections travelled from a residence of one family to another’s, often for hundreds of miles, in order to be appreciated by a new owner, of simply to seek safety.  

The route Ukraine-Lithuania continued into more recent times, when in the early 20th century, the ranks by collectors from nobility were joined by prosperous entrepreneurs, public figures, when private initiatives lead to the emergence of the first public galleries and museums. Their founders, contemporary enthusiasts of art and history, despite considerable geographic distance, knew and supported each other via private letters, visits, public texts and gifts.      

The multifaceted cultural heritage of Ukraine  

The exhibition features art treasures from the Borys Voznytsky Lviv National Art Gallery. It is the biggest Ukrainian art museum with 18 subdivisions. Most of the artists who produced the paintings on display are very well known to art fans:  Francisco Goya (1746–1828), Prospero Fontana (1512–1597), Jan de Heem (1606–1684), Alexander Adriaenssen (1587–1661), Corneliu Baba (1906–1997), also the artists who worked at the court of the ruler of the Commonwealth of the Two Nations, Jean-Pierre Norblin (1745–1830), also representatives of Vilnius Art School Jan Rustem (1762–1835) and Juozapas Oleškevičius (1777–1830), and the luminaries of Polish art Jan Matejko (1838–1893) and Henryk Siemiradzki (1843–1902).  

The exhibition “Old Masters from the Ukrainian Museums” presents a multifaceted heritage of contemporary Ukraine and the riches of the museums’ collections. According to the curators, the entirety of the artwork on display at the Clock and Watch Museum of the LNMA fully reflects a typical structure of the collections of art as they were centuries ago and takes us back in time, evoking the memory of the collections that Lithuania lost in previous centuries due to the exactly the same circumstance.  

Exhibition The Old Masters from the Ukrainian Museums. Borys Voznytsky Lviv National Art Gallery opens Thursday, 30 January at 5 pm and will run through December 1 at the Clock and Watch Museum of the LNMA (Liepų st. 12, Klaipėda).   

Organizers: The Lithuanian National Museum of Art, Clock and Watch Museum, Borys Voznytsky Lviv National Art Gallery  

Project patrons: Minister of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania Šarūnas Birutis, Ukrainian Minister of Culture and Strategic Communication Mykola Tochytskyi 

Project leaders: Director General of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art Dr Arūnas Gelūnas, Director General of the Borys Voznytsky Lviv National Art Gallery Taras Voznyak  

Exhibition curators and coordinators: Aistė Bimbirytė, Giedrūda Kazonienė, Mykhailo Kobryn, Skaistis Mikulionis, Eglė Rumbutytė-Šimienė, Dalia Tarandaitė, Joana Vitkutė 

Exhibition architect Jurgis Dagelis 

Exhibition designer Lina Bastienė 

Translators: Džiulija Elena Fedirkienė, Ruslanas Skrobačas 

Language editor Ieva Puluikienė 

Communication coordinator Indrė Polimaitienė

Exhibit Specialists: Dainius Markevičius, Norbert Hinc, Andrius Ivanovas, Salvijus Misevičius

Project partners: 

Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania in Ukraine  

Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania in the Republic of Poland  

Ukrainian Embassy in the Republic of Lithuania  

Lithuanian Armed Forces 

Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union  

Customs of the Republic of Lithuania 

Patrol Police of Ukraine 

State Customs Service of Ukraine 

State Boarder Guard of Ukraine 

Lead Supporter:  BTA Baltic Insurance Company 

Supporters: Klaipėda Musical Theatre, UAB AD REM, CLS Brokerage Company, JSC |Nova Post Lithuania, cafe Liepžiedis 

Information supporter: Klaipėda Tourism Information Centre  

Special thanks to: Valdas Dovydėnas, Robertas Gabulas, Tadas Gečauskas, Rita Grochovskienė, Tomas Ivanauskas, Renata Kanarskaja, Mirijana Kozak, Valdemaras Sarapinas, Narimantas Savickas, Inga Stanytė-Toločkienė, Andrius Šulskis, Olha Hryhorʼyeva, Lyubomyr Dem’yanchuk, Serhiy Kryzhnenko, Andriy Chernega, Volodymyr Chornogor