Pranas Domsaitis: Nativity scene - SOLD

Pranas Domsaitis
Nativity scene
Oil on canvasboard
67 x 54,5 cm
Signed bottom right
Sold - 2009

Born Franz Domscheit on 15 August 1880 at Cropiens, Postnicken, East Prussia
Died 14 November 1965 at the age of 85, Rondebosch, Cape Town

The son of a peasant farmer, Franz Domscheit was born into the rural Lithuanian culture of East Prussia. Growing up in this environment, surrounded by the prevailing traditions and peasant religious sentiment, had a formative and definitive influence on his artistic development, style and subject matter.

While working in Germany and Lithuania, and among the farming communities of Bavaria and Austria, between 1914 and 1918, he developed the religious themes which would later dominate his oeuvre.

Domscheit exhibited with the Berlin Seccession, holding his first solo exhibition in Breslau in 1919. He started building a successful reputation in Germany, and was strongly influenced by the German Expressionists. Participating in many group exhibitions, he exhibited alongside artists such as Max Beckmann, Marc Chagall, Ludwig Kirchner, Paul Klee, Oscar Kokoschka, Max Liebermann, Jules Pascin, Max Pechstein and Karl Schmidt-Rotluff.

Despite the fact that he was one of the group of artists whose work was declared ‘degenerate’ by the Nazis in 1935, he continued to live and work in Germany until 1944, when he moved to Austria and changed his name to Pranas Domsaitis.

Domsaitis arrived in South Africa in 1949 at the age of 69, when his wife, the singer Adelheid Armhold, was offered a lectureship at the University of Cape Town. At this stage of his career, Domsaitis’ work was dominated by two distinct themes; still life paintings, mainly of flower pieces, and religious works, usually depicting the life of Christ.

Given Domsaitis’ close association with, and exposure to the works of artists like Chagall, it is not surprising that there are distinct similarities in style and presentation - particularly when handling religious themes like this nativity scene.

In a review of an exhibition of Domsaitis’ paintings in September 1962, Graham Watson wrote:
His work possesses something of Chagall’s enchanting visions, the guileless piety of Roualt, the resonant colour of the Expressionists and the intuitive wisdom of the peasant.

Bibliography:
Elsa Verloren van Themaat, Pranas Domsaitis, Cape Town, 1976, p 20

To view the Pranas Domsaitis web page click here