Vytautas Kasiulis (1918-1995)

He was born in Lithuania in 1918 and before 1943, he taught drawing at the Fine Arts School in Kaunas, the Lithuanian capital. Captured by the Nazis, he was taken to East Prussia where he worked as a slave laborer on a farm. There, Kasiulis milked cows and painted portraits of local German officials, a service for which he was rewarded with extra food rations. With the help of Allied officers, he made his way to Paris when the war ended, and got as job as a night watchman. By night he patrolled a radio shop with a revolver; by day he visited the galleries, marveled at the works of the French impressionists.

Kasiulis had his first one-man show in 1949, and immediately sold all 23 ...