Grybas, Vincas Jurgio

Born Sept. 21 (Oct. 3), 1890, in the village of Pelenai, in present-day Sakiai Raion; died July 3, 1941, in Jurbarkas. Lithuanian sculptor, primarily a monumentalist.

He participated in the October Revolution of 1917. He studied at the Drawing Class in Warsaw (1909–12), at the Kaunas Art School (1923–25) under K. Sklerius, and in Paris (1925–27) in the studio of E. A. Bourdelle. Grybas tried to combine generality and mighty scope with careful, detailed surfaces in his works, imbued with national self-consciousness. This can be seen in such works as the bust of the writer and enlightener S. Daūkantas, Kaunas Art Museum, and the monument to him in the village of Papile, Akmene Raion, both bronze, 1930; the statue Žemaitis in Raseiniai, cement, marble chip, 1933–34, a symbolic monument in honor of the Lithuanian peasantry; and the monument to V. Kudirka in Kudirkos-Naumiestis, Ŝakiai Raion, cement, marble chip, 1934. He was shot by the fascists for creating busts of K. Marx and F. Engels.