Personal Data of Artist Telesforas Valius

Personal Data

Telesforas
Valius

Graphic Art
Professional Data

Selected Works:
#1 - #17

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Telesforas Valius was born in Riga, Latvia, on July 10, 1914. He was the youngest child in a Lithuanian family of modest means. The Valius family returned to Lithuania in 1918, right after the end of World War I, and settled in Telsiai, where Telesforas attended both grade and high schools. Encouraged by his art teacher, Telesforas entered the Kaunas Art School, established in 1922 and the only one in the country at that time, in 1931. He specialized in printmaking, graduating in 1937. The same year, he briefly visited Paris, where he studied Japanese woodcuts.
Even before graduation, in 1934, Telesforas began part-time work as an artist at the Kaunas Textile Company. After graduation he continued to work there full-time, specializing in commercial silkscreen printing on fabric.
When the Vilnius Art Academy was established in 1942, Telesforas became a teacher there and the head of the Department of Printmaking. In 1943, he returned to Telsiai, where he worked as the director and artist of the Samogitian Theater.
At the end of October in 1944, Telesforas went to Vienna, Austria, where he married Aldona Miciulyte on December 25th, and then settled in Lustenau/Vorarlberg, Austria. In September of 1945, he published a collection of his prints. In 1946, he was invited to teach printmaking at the Ecole des Arts et Metiers in Freiburg, Germany, where he stayed till 1949 as the head of the printmaking department.
In March of 1949, the Valius family emigrated to Canada, living briefly near Montreal and then permanently settling in Toronto in September. Telesforas became a citizen of Canada in 1955. In Toronto Telesforas continued to teach the art of printmaking at the Central Technical School, at the Western Technical Commercial School, at Winston Churchill Collegiate, and at the University of Toronto. He became a major force in Canadian printmaking.
Telesforas's early work between 1937 and 1956 was primarily wrought wood engraving and linoleum cuts. Starting with 1956, however, he made a number of trips to Paris, which had a major influence on his work. He started using color and his work became more abstract.
Telesforas Valius died on December 1, 1977, of pancreatic cancer and is buried in Mississauga, a Toronto suburb.
Reference
R. Viesulas, Telesforas Valius, TAV Publishing, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 1984.