Albinas Elskus. Heavenly light

Albinas Elskus (1926–2007) was a stained-glass artist, painter, dedicated educator, an inspired essayist, and a passionate sailor. After spending much of his life in exile in the United States, he became a legendary figure and one of the greatest authorities in the world of stained glass. In 2000, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Stained Glass Association of America, and his handbook for painting on glass, “The Art of Painting on Glass”, has been reprinted several times and is still considered the best study of the genre.

The artist, who began his career in large stained glass workshops in Chicago and New York, eventually established an independent stained glass studio in New York, creating large-scale stained glass for over a hundred shrines in the United States and Canada in a career spanning over half a century. Having understood the secrets of Gothic stained glass windows, the artist flooded American sanctuaries with a harmoniously arranged divine light, in which liturgical stories are depicted by combining classical principles of composition with quotes from modern abstract art, neorealism, the elements of heaven and earth, emotional and rational beginnings merge into a whole.

Albinas Elskus was constantly looking for new principles of composing stained glass and created experimental works in chamber format, in which classical painting intriguingly combines with pop art, photorealism, or expressive artwork. He was an unsurpassed master of fusing seemingly incompatible elements – a photorealistic portrait or a nature motif with abstract rhythmic structures. He studied old art and drew inspiration from it, but created for his time, paying respect to classical art with postmodernist quotes.

Assoc. prof. Žydrūnas Mirinavičius