Adolfas Valeška

Adolfas Valeška (15 March 1905, Kybartai – 11 May 1994, Kaunas, Lithuania) was a Lithuanian stained glass artist, painter, stage designer, and museum director who worked in Lithuania and in Chicago, Illinois.

A painting by Adolfas Valeška of Our Lady of Fatima is seen behind the late Msgr. Simon Morkunas, here shown preaching from a pulpit also designed by Valeška, in St. Casimir's Church, Sioux City, Iowa ci. 1965.

Another view of Our Lady of Fatima by Valeška, which now resides at Trinity Heights Shrine in Sioux City, Iowa.

Valeška graduated from the Kaunas Art School in 1928. He then began work as a church decorator, moving on to co-found a museum of religious art in Kaunas. From 1939 to 1944 he served as director of the Vilnius Art Museum. During this period his work was exhibited in a number of venues, including the International Exhibition of Decorative Arts in Paris, 1935; the International Press Exhibition at the Vatican, 1935; and the International Exhibition of Decorative Arts in Berlin, 1937, where he earned a medal for designing the Lithuanian Pavilion.

Anticipating the Soviet occupation of Lithuania at the end of World War II, in 1944 he emigrated first to West Germany and then to the United States, where he established a studio in Chicago. He designed and executed a number of stained glass works and mosaics, as well as acting as stage designer for the Lithuanian Opera Company of Chicago.

Valeska's work includes:

Mosaics and stained glass at St. Philomena's Church in Chicago
Stained glass windows at O'Hare Airport, Chicago
Stained glass windows at Congregation Rodfei Zedek in Chicago
Stained glass windows at the former Marshall Field's, Chicago
Stained glass at Holy Cross Church, Dayton, Ohio
Four oil paintings that depict scenes from Lithuanian and American history at Holy Cross Church in Chicago.
Freestanding windows, part of an ongoing exhibition at the Smith Museum of Stained Glass, Navy Pier, Chicago
Stained glass, pulpit, and paintings at St. Casimir Lithuanian Roman Catholic Church in Sioux City, Iowa.

After Lithuania regained its independence in 1990, he returned to the country of his birth, where he died at the age of 89 in 1994.

Sources

"Valeška". Encyclopedia Lituanica VI: 44-45. (1970–1978). Ed. Simas Sužiedėlis. Boston, Massachusetts: Juozas Kapočius. LCC 74-114275.

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