Influential Graphic Artist
At the time he immigrated to Canada, via Germany, from Communist-oppressed Lithuania, 1949, Telesforas Valius was already an eminent illustrator and graphic artist. His early wrought wood engravings reflect such weighty themes as famine, fire, and funerals, subject matters which Telesforas Valius confronted in Lithuania as a young man bursting with artistic talent. Combining earlier skills he learned in Lithuania with the influential styles emerging in post-1945 America, the work of Telesforas Valius is today recognized as some of the finest graphic art of his generation. As a Toronto-based artist, Mr. Valius won many honours. He was elected Fellow of the International Institute of Arts and Letters in Switzerland; he was made Member of the Academy Tommaso Campanella in Rome; he also was elected Member of the American Color Print Society. In 1967, he was awarded Canada’s Centennial Medal. Ed Bartram, one of Canada’s outstanding printmakers, recently stated that Telesforas Valius, who died in 1977, “had immense knowledge about printmaking methods and a highly perfected facibility.” Robert Duval, one of Canada’s most respected art critics, claims that the art of Mr. Valius “represents a permanent resource for Canadians to enjoy in the future.” Romas Viesulas, noted Professor at the Tyler School of Arts, Temple University, Philadelphia, has written that Telesforas Valius’ 1942 wood engraving, Funeral Procession, as viewed here, from the cycle Tragedy of the Baltic Seashore III, “is a work of striking visual directness and of extraordinary psychological and graphic impact," claiming as well, that it is “one of the masterpieces of Lithuanian printmaking.” [Photos, courtesy Lithuania Museum-Archives Mississauga]