History
The institution's origins can be traced to the early 20th century, when a resurgence of cultural interest followed the end of the ban on the Lithuanian language imposed by the Russian Empire. A number of art exhibitions at that time donated works to the Lithuanian Art Society, which began to make plans for a permanent facility. The activity was interrupted by World War I.
During the postwar era, the plans were re-started. In 1933, the Vilnius Magistracy, an administrative division of the Polish government that controlled Vilnius at the time, decided to establish a City Museum. Works of art were collected and stored in various buildings, but were not accessible to visitors. In April 1941, its first exhibitions were held; it was known at the time as the Vilnius State Art Museum. In January 1997, the new government of Lithuania granted the museum its current status as a national museum; it is now part of the Ministry of Culture.
Read more about this topic: Lithuanian Art Museum
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)