Exhibition of Works by Nijolė Šivickas de Mockus Opens in Kėdainiai

Thanks to the efforts of the Anykščiai Arts Centre, a selection of Nijolė’s works has been brought back to Lithuania. Working with a wonderful team, including Ilona Mažeikienė, Director of the Vytautas Kasiulis Museum of Art, and her colleagues, we prepared a project for the Lithuanian Council for Culture. The Anykščiai Arts Centre was awarded funding for the project.

This long and dedicated effort has finally borne fruit: Nijolė’s work has returned to Lithuania and can now be presented to the public. We are deeply grateful to the family for donating the works and for coming to Lithuania to open the exhibition at the Vytautas Kasiulis Museum of Art. It was a wonderful evening.

Nijolė Šivickas de Mockus (1925–2018) was a Colombian artist of Lithuanian descent whose life and work spanned the dramatic historical upheavals of the 20th century, the experience of emigration, and a remarkable artistic journey.

Born in Kėdainiai, on the banks of the Nevėžis River, she grew up in independent Lithuania, but her youth was shaped by the upheavals of the Second World War, Nazi occupation and Soviet occupation. In 1944, she fled to Germany and later emigrated to Colombia, where she developed a distinctive artistic language that earned her recognition throughout Latin America and beyond.

In 2026, the artist’s family donated a collection of 209 works to Lithuania, comprising sculptures, paintings, graphic works and drawings from different periods of her artistic career.

The first exhibition of Nijolė Šivickas de Mockus’s work in Lithuania, at the Vytautas Kasiulis Museum of Art of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art in Vilnius, is now open to visitors and will run until 7 February.

In Nijolė’s hometown of Kėdainiai, the Janina Monkutė-Marks Museum-Gallery will present a selection of works from the donated collection, together with video works created by Eglė Marija Želvytė. The exhibition will be open free of charge from 31 July to 15 October.