Algimantas Kezys was
born in Lithuania in 1928.
Fleeing to the West
prior to the Soviet occupation of his native country,
Kezys came to the United States in 1950 to study and eventually
to be ordained as a Jesuit Priest. In 1956 he received
a Master's Degree in Philosophy from Loyola University
in Chicago. Assigned to the Lithuanian province
of the Jesuit Fathers he served his countrymen in Chicago
and other cities in the United States.
He founded the Lithuanian Photo Library and has
served as its president since 1966. He also founded
and is presently Chairman
of the Board of the Lithuanian Library Press
in Chicago. From 1974 to 1977 he directed the Lithuanian
Youth Center in Chicago.
Kezys
fostered his own artistic inclinations by immersing himself
in the art of photography, and, in 1965 his artistic talent
was recognized with his first exhibition at the Art Institute
of Chicago. He
has since exhibited in a number of American and European
museums
and his work has appeared in magazines and books on both
sides of the Atlantic.
His most recent exhibition (May 2000) was in Washington D.C.,
sponsered by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Now
a former Jesuit, Kezys operates a small gallery (Galerija)
in Stickney, Illinois, that represents Lithuanian artists
worldwide and publishes reviews, catalogs, and books on art,
religion, and photography.
Christian Narkiewicz-Lane* has written of Kezys, "...Kezys
tends to be the maker of a newly defined world as much as
the vehicle of artistic expression will allow. Here
he walks towards and through himself in order to cross the
threshold of a broader experience. The viewer who exists
tends to disappear and pass into the image. This is
proof of the possibility of placing oneself in a particular
territory, deep in the personal heart of life, as well as
plunged into the unknown and into the anonymity of time and
space... the effect is like awakening from a dream
- transforming the "apparition" back to the landscape
or the cityscape. The void returns to the silence of
nature, however leading to a higher and more defined reason."
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Fleeing to the West
prior to the Soviet occupation of his native country,
Kezys came to the United States in 1950 to study and eventually
to be ordained as a Jesuit Priest. In 1956 he received
a Master's Degree in Philosophy from Loyola University
in Chicago. Assigned to the Lithuanian province
of the Jesuit Fathers he served his countrymen in Chicago
and other cities in the United States.
He founded the Lithuanian Photo Library and has
served as its president since 1966. He also founded
and is presently Chairman
of the Board of the Lithuanian Library Press
in Chicago. From 1974 to 1977 he directed the Lithuanian
Youth Center in Chicago.