Anelė Zikarienė ir Alytė Zikaraitė – svarbiausios Juozo Zikaro gyvenimo ir kūrybos moterys

Abstract

The creation of prominent Lithuanian sculptor Juozas Zikaras was influenced by his wife Anelė Zikarienė (1888–1963). She was the main model of his scultures. We can see A. Zikarienė‘s face in his first professional work “Mother” (1916), and the famous sculpture in Kaunas “The Independance” (1921). Even though Anelė Zikarienė was an educated and strict lady, she was a right partner who cared about the professional career of her husband. She was a very good economist, and despite very unstable Zikaras‘s income, she managed the family budget well. Anelė Zikarienė had six children, two of which died at a very young age. In addition to house keeping and caring about the children, Anelė Zikarienė was a very active member at the Lithuanian Women‘s Council. After the death of Juozas Zikaras, Anelė Zikarienė encouraged their daughter Alytė Zikaraitė (1925–1998) to gather all works of art of Juozas Zikaras and establish a memorial museum at his studio. Alytė Zikaraitė devoted her life for the establishment of Zikaras memorial museum. In 1955, she started travelling around Lithuania gathering her father‘s pieces of art, wrote memoirs about Zikaras, and made archives of personal documents. In 1995, she wrote a testament, according to which Zikaras‘s memorial museum was donated to M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art.