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Pranas Domsaitis was born Franz Domscheit in Kropinas, on the border of East Prussia and Lithuania. He spent the first twenty-seven years of his life as a farmer, but always had an interest in art. He studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Art in Königsberg and under Lovis Corinth in Berlin. He furthered his studies in Paris, Florence London and Amsterdam. The artist’s early influences of Lithuanian peasant and religious folk art remained the artist’s primary influence, and to this was added the more simplified and darkly outlined forms that he learned from the German Expressionists. He was also influenced by French artist Georges Rouault and the Norwegian Edvard Munch. In 1920 he changed his name to Pranas Domsaitis. In 1949, at the age of 69, he moved to South Africa where he resided until his death in 1965. Domsaitis was a member of the New Group and the South African Society of Arts. He won the Artists of Fame and Promise competition in 1964 at the age of 84. Working in oil, watercolour and numerous graphic media, Domsaitis painted his surroundings. He painted the landscape, the people and their animals, and particularly flowers. He used mostly sombre colours to paint simple figures, adding heavy outlines to create his melancholic and religious images. While living in South Africa the artist focused on two themes, still-life studies, and religious and sacred subjects, including the life of Christ. Many of Domsaitis’ South African landscapes were painted in the Karoo, where he captured the vast open spaces and endless emptiness, the long twilight and isolated homesteads. He focused on capturing the spirituality and atmosphere of the region. Domsaitis exhibited in numerus group and solo shows throughout Europe and South Africa, including the 1960 and 1964 Quadrennial exhibitions, and his works are represented in several art museum collections throughout Europe and in most of the public collections in South Africa.
