Image: M. K. Čiurlionis National Art Museum, Kaunas
The M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art in Kaunas will mark M. K. Čiurlionis’s 151st birthday on 19 September 2026 with a free public programme centred on his paintings, music and the work of his teacher, Kazimieras Stabrauskas. The day’s 14:00 event will introduce works by Stabrauskas to the Čiurlionis painting exhibition for the first time.
Virginija Vitkienė, the museum’s director general and an art historian, will present the Stabrauskas works. The presentation will also turn to the Čiurlionis family harmonium: professor and organ restorer Girėnas Povilionis will discuss the instrument and perform several pieces on it. The museum describes the harmonium as an instrument from Čiurlionis’s time that has been returned to use.
Music will also shape two thematic tours, both titled ‘Čiurlionio harmonija’. The first begins at noon, with an English-language tour following at 16:00. Led by educator Armandas Čiapas, the tours will pair accounts of Čiurlionis’s work with live performances of his harmonisations of Lithuanian folk songs. The programme presents the artist as one of Lithuania’s leading creators and identifies his connection to folk tradition as a focus of the tours.
Earlier in the day, from 11:00 to 13:00, family workshops will invite adults and children to make work using charcoal, pastel and their pigments. Participants will experiment with techniques, textures and layered colour, drawing with fingers and brushes in sessions inspired by Čiurlionis’s surroundings, music, fairy-tale world and reflections.
The Stabrauskas works being introduced during the birthday programme were transferred to the museum by Dr Jaunius Gumbis.
