Lithuanian Easter Eggs

Lore Hoar is an information consultant living in Calgary.

Antanas Tamosaitis is a painter, graphic artist, tapestry-weaver and pedagogue. He graduated from the Kaunas Art Institute in 1929. Since 1950, he has lived in Kingston, Ontario, where he set up an art studio together with his wife. Mr. Tamosaitis learned to paint and colour Easter eggs as a child from his mother. Very early in his life, he became interested in Easter eggs, copying the peasant creations and later collecting them. In 1945 the Tamosaitis collection of coloured Easter egg copies numbered over 1,500 entries.

The Easter egg art was widely practised in Lithuania until the end of the nineteenth century. Over the centuries, the Easter egg decoration had grown and developed gaining variety in form, composition, and colour combination. Until the end of the nineteenth century, printed material was not available and contact with other countries almost non-existent. This explains why the Lithuanian Easter egg tradition was little influenced by outside sources and managed to retain a certain purity of style. The Lithuanian Easter eggs stand out because of their originality and pattern variety. With the advent of the twentieth century, the Easter egg art began dying and with it a whole folklonic tradition.

Antanas Tamosaitis looks at the Lithuanian Easter egg art through the eyes of an art critic and finds that it is a first-rate peasant creation. Lithuanian Easter Eggs contains only those eggs which are considered to be authentic Lithuanian folk art pieces. This is a primary source for those interested in Lithuanian Easter egg patterns. The book contains approximately 80 pages of text supplemented with numerous black-and-white illustrations and 135 full-page colour plates.