Biography
Mykolas Paškevičius was born in Riga, Latvia, in 1907. In 1914 his family moved to Belarus and settled in Vitebsk where he was enrolled in primary school. In 1922 he began studying at the Vitebsk Art School. At that time, the famous artist, Kazimir Malevich, was his teacher, and also V. Volkov, and T. Ende. Upon graduation he was accepted by the Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) Academy of Art and studied under such noteworthy artists as A. Rylov and Petrov-Vodkin. having finished his studies at the Academy, he returned to Minsk, capitol of Belarus, where he worked independently as an artist, joined the local Art League, and had his work exhibited in Moscow's Tretiakov Gallery.
When the Germans occupied Minsk at the beginning of WW II Paškevičius succeeded to escape to Kaunas, Lithuania, where for a few years he was able to participate peacefully in the artistic life of the city. In 1944, he fled the war again and arrived in Bavaria where he and his family were given shelter by the Americans in a Displaced Persons' Camp. In 1949 he emigrated to the USA.
His wife is an artist Ona Dokalskaitė Paškevičienė.
Style
Mykolas Paškevičius works mostly in acrylics, painting portraits and motifs found in nature. His style is expressionistic, stressing the movements of line and colour, thus giving strength and individuality to his subjects. The delicacy and the spontaneity of the brush strokes, the sparing use of vivid colour, the limited amount of abstraction in his narrative are the trademarks of this poetic painter.
