The Spirit of the Purvitis School – Inherited, Cultivated, Reimagined
04.09.2026–24.09.2026
This September, at Zuzeum Art Museum’s Small Exhibition Hall we will present the exhibition “ARIJS SKRIDE 120. The Spirit of the Purvitis School – Inherited, Cultivated, Reimagined”, dedicated to Arijs Skride, one of the most distinguished Latvian landscape painters of the 20th century.
Marking the 120th anniversary of the artist’s birth, the exhibition focuses on Skride’s formative creative years, introducing visitors to the period during which one of the most distinctive artistic styles in 20th-century Latvian landscape painting began to emerge.
The exhibition explores the 1920s–1940s, when Arijs Skride studied at the Art Academy of Latvia in the Landscape Painting Studio led by Professor Vilhelms Purvitis, and the years immediately following his graduation, when he rapidly established himself as an independent artist. It was during this period that the qualities defining his mature work began to take shape: a refined tonal palette, complex spatial compositions, rich painterly texture, and a remarkable ability to reveal the subtle relationships between light, space and atmosphere within the Latvian landscape.
The exhibition brings together approximately fifty works from private collections. Alongside well-known works, visitors will also encounter paintings that have either never been publicly exhibited or have remained out of public view for decades. Together, these works offer a rare opportunity to follow the artist’s professional and artistic development and experimentation as his distinctive artistic language gradually evolved.
Skride’s early oeuvre reveals the moment when the academic principles acquired in Professor Vilhelms Purvitis’ master studio were transformed into an individual artistic vision. The careful study of nature, the understanding of light and colour relationships, compositional discipline, and an uncompromising commitment to painterly quality became the foundation of his independent artistic development. His paintings demonstrate that artistic tradition was never simply imitated, but thoughtfully reinterpreted and transformed into a highly personal visual language.
The exhibition features Latvian rural landscapes alongside views of ports, urban outskirts, market squares, industrial scenes and motifs from the Latgale region. Together, these works reveal Skride’s ability to balance academic precision with an emotionally charged perception of nature, allowing light, space and tonal relationships to become the principal means of artistic expression.
The exhibition offers a unique opportunity to encounter Arijs Skride at the beginning of his artistic journey—before the works that would later establish his reputation. It invites visitors to discover the origins of one of the most distinctive artistic voices in Latvian landscape painting and to follow the creative process through which academic tradition developed into an original, confident and deeply individual painterly language.
The exhibition is organised by the Skride Foundation in collaboration with Zuzeum Art Museum bringing together works from private collections to highlight Arijs Skride’s artistic legacy and to introduce audiences to one of the least explored periods of his creative career.
Artwork: Arijs Skride. The Daugava near Pļaviņas, 1939. Private collection.
