Biography

Ludolfs Liberts was born in Tirza on April 3, 1895, in the family of the brewmasters - Marc and Matilde. At the age of eleven, Liberts met the painter Voldemars Zeltins, who encouraged him to keep interest in art and continue growing in Riga.

After graduating from Kenins Art School in Riga, Liberts went to Moscow, wherein 1911 he enrolled in the Strogonov Art School Sculpture Department. A year later he moved to the Kazan Art School, where he received his diploma in 1915.

During World War I, Liberts graduated from Alexander's military school in 1916 and became an officer on the Polish front, but was then taken hostage in Germany. He returned to Latvia in 1921 and began working for the satirical magazine “Ho-Ho”. From 1924 he worked at the Latvian National Opera as a decorator and director, but in 1935 he became the director of the State Paper Printing House and the Mint. Nevertheless, Liberts educated students at the Latvian Academy of Arts and ran a figural painting workshop from 1923 to 1932.

In 1944, Ludolfs Liberts emigrated with his family from Latvia. After living for several years in Germany and elsewhere in Europe, he arrived in New York in 1950, and there he was able to make a living by painting and teaching at New York City College.

Liberts paintings are stored in almost all major art centers. He has represented Latvian art and scenography at exhibitions in Paris, Brussels, Berlin, Stockholm, New York, Helsinki, Prague, Barcelona, Munich, Zurich, Vienna, Ottawa, Oslo, Moscow, Leningrad, Tallinn, Tartu, Warsaw, Krakow, Budapest, Kaunas, Copenhagen, and London.

The last fifteen years of exile in the United States conclude the artist's work, where Liberts passed away on March 11, 1959, in New York.

Artistic description

Scenography and stage costumes have an important role in Ludolf Liberts' works, as for almost a decade, he was the main stage decorator of the National Opera of Latvia, who managed to stage around 70 operas, ballets and operetta performances. However, Liberts reached his popularity in the public eye with his expressive depictions of big cities, which were also accompanied by his stage vision where drama unfolds. The first stage in the artist’s work has passed in the spirit of expressionism, popular with Latvian modernists, emphasizing the rhythms of lines and sharpness of edges, but the latest stage was romantically impressionistic, soft, foggy and silvery bright.

Variations in artistic styles and genres have highlighted the versatility and virtuosity of Liberts. Over the years, his contrasts alternate in color, artistic handwriting, and the motifs of his paintings: mixing reality with fantasy, primitiveness with sophistication, constructivism with impressionism. His romantic inner world has prompted the depiction of very iconic scenes of Western European capitals in a dynamic and baroque movement, rather than in muted harmony. The lively boulevards of Paris and the illuminated canals of Venice are immortalized in dynamic lines and silvery brightness. Even while in exile in the United States, the painter, again and again, creates scenes from Riga, Venice, and Paris, but only as images of memory from photographs.

Liberts has also painted tonally muted landscapes of Latvia, dominated by homeland fields with meadows and birch groves, as well as views of Tornkalns. The urban landscapes of Riga's Old Town are poetic, the House of the Blackheads and St. Peter's Church vibrate in a French impression. In the early stages of his career, he also painted figural compositions on the themes of ancient Latvian life, which mostly had an idyllic character.

Interesting facts

In 1952, some members of the American Latvian Association (ALA) presented Ludolf Liberts' painting "Towers of Riga" as a thank you to the newly elected 34th President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower. It was so highly regarded by the President that he proudly hung it in the place of honor in the President's office in White House, Washington. The existence of Latvia and the talent of the Latvian artist were shown countless times in live television broadcasts. The famous “Life” magazine has also documented this painting together with a photo portrait of President Eisenhower in the March 12, 1956 issue.