Museum “Riga Art Nouveau Centre” invites visitors to exhibition entitled “Jēkabs Dranda. Ceramics”.
Museum “Riga Art Nouveau Centre” invites visitors to exhibition entitled “Jēkabs Dranda. Ceramics”. Refined ceramic plates and vases decorated with splendid plant motifs characterize the mastery of the Art Nouveau period ceramist Jekabs Dranda. The exhibition is successfully supplemented with the plates made by the students of Smiltene Art School. The colour shades and patterns of the plates resemble those in the pieces pie Jekabs Dranda. The exhibition acquaints its visitors with the applied art traditions of Art Nouveau and their inheritability.
Ceramist Jekabs Dranda (10 Apr., 1853–03 May, 1915) comes from Smiltene region. At the beginning of the 20th century Jekabs Dranda’s pieces served as an example for all 20th century Latvian craftsmen on how to create a nationally expressive and modern applied art. Dranda’s pieces stand out with their light and happy mood and polychrome subglaze painting with colourful toned clay in matching colours. His Art Nouveau style pieces feature both the traits characteristic to Latvian traditional pottery and the plant patterns seen in the art of Central Asia. The artist mainly produced plates and vases and used the red clay common in Smiltene region. The decorations contain a flower motif resembling the shapes found in nature – daisies, dandelions, bird-cherry trees and others.
At the beginning of 1920s the dishes made by Dranda were very popular in Latvia and were also exported to Russia and Italy where they won recognition as well. The most significant achievement was the participation in the International art and household manufacturing in Milano in 1906 where his pieces received a silver prize.
Dranda taught his craft to many potters of the beginnings of the 20th century, such as Davis Larmanis, Janis Ievins, Karlis Udrass, Karlis Aumeistars, Karlis Purins and even artist Ansis Cirulis.
The exhibition “Jekabs Dranda. Ceramics” presents Dranda’s pieces from the collection of the National History Museum of Latvia as well as Decorative Art and Design Museum and pieces created by students of Smiltene Art School.
The exhibition will be open from 6 September, 2019 until 6 October, 2019.
For more information:
Iveta Sproģe,
project manager
Museum “Riga Art Nouveau Centre”.
Tel. 67181183
E-mail: Iveta.Sproge@riga.lv