Vilhelms Kārlis Purvītis

Latvian painter, teacher. Born at Jaužos in the parish of Zaube near Riga (1872). Studied under Arkhip Kuinji (from 1895) at the Imperial Academy of Arts (1890–97). Fellow of the Imperial Academy of Arts in Paris and Rome (1898–99). Member of the World of Art (1900, 1911). Academician of painting (1913). Taught at a school of art in Reval (1906–09), Riga School of Art (1909–15, director) and the Latvian Academy of Arts (1920–24). Director of the Riga Museum of Art (1919–40, 1941–44). Emigrated to Germany (1944). Died in Bad Nauheim in Hesse (1945), reburied in Latvia (1994). Contributed to exhibitions (from 1894). Contributed to the exhibitions of the St Petersburg Society of Artists (1894), Imperial Academy of Arts (1897–1900), Exhibition of Russian and Finnish Artists (1898), Large Baltic Exhibition in Riga (1898), World of Art (1900–03), Exhibition of Baltic Artists in Riga (1901), Munich Sezession (1896), Exhibition of Baltic Artists in Pernov (1907), Autumn Exhibition of Baltic Artists (1910), Union of Baltic Artists (1911–18), Exhibition of Latvian Artists in Petrograd and Moscow (1915), Exposition Universelle in Paris (1900, bronze medal) and the international exhibitions in Munich (1901, gold medal) and Lyon (1901, grand prix).