Vilnius County Adam Mickiewicz Public Library (VAVB) hosted an exhibition of paintings by Irena Fedorowicz Wasilewska, a former employee of the library and a researcher of the Vilnius region. The exposition included landscapes, still lifes, and colourful compositions. Her painting technique was oil on canvas. Irena donated two of her paintings to the library. The artist has held more than 20 solo exhibitions, participates in joint exhibitions, as well as plein-air exhibitions in Lithuania and abroad, and curates plein-air exhibitions herself.
Irena Fedorovič, a graduate of the Justinas Vienožinskis Art School in Vilnius, has said of her tendency to paint: ‘Art is a disease that strikes the sensitive in one of her exhibitions. In the words of Fedorovich Fedorovich, “People who have been exposed to the world’s most beautiful art in her school years. And I have it, but I don’t want to get better.” She is a philologist by profession, a graduate of Vilnius University, but has worked in libraries for many years. From 1982 to 1988 she was an employee of the VAVB, and later she was the head of the library of the Rudamina Ferdinandas Ruszczyc Gymnasium in Vilnius district. In recent years, she has been engaged in creative activities, interested in the history and cultural heritage of her native land (Vilnius district). She is the author of two books in Polish about Vilnius: “Niegasnący promyk” (“Unquenchable Ray”, 2016) and “Dom przy drodze” (“House by the Road”, 2020).
They tell the history of the villages, the development of education and schools in Vilnius district. The author has gathered interesting information about the now almost extinct Dusinėņi, where the poet Adam Mickiewicz’s friend, the Vilnius-based Polish writer Antoni Gorecki (1787-1861), lived, and where the poet’s future son-in-law, the painter Tadeusz Gorecki, Antoni’s son, was born. He also found interesting facts about Raudonka, which is only in people’s memories, where Aleksander Miłosz, the father of the writer Czesław Miłosz, had bought a small house. The future Nobel Prize winner used to visit here before his hunting trips in the Rūdininkai Forest. He mentions this place in his works. Translated into Lithuanian, these publications would make a significant addition to the local history collection of Vilnius libraries. “I love to write, I also love books, I buy new ones all the time, I read a lot,” Irena said in an interview. And when asked what she is going to write now, Irena said that it will most likely be a publication on a topic of particular interest to her – local history.
(Journal „Between Books“ nr. 10 ,2022)
