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A major retrospective opens at the Latvian National Museum of Art (LNMM) on August 14th marking the centenary of the late Raimonds Staprāns, an outstanding Latvian émigré artist and playwright.

The exhibition will run from 14 August 2026 to 17 January 2027 in the museum’s 4th-floor galleries.

“The centenary exhibition of Raimonds Staprāns (1926–2026) aims to introduce works never seen before in Latvia while providing a focused yet comprehensive overview of the artist’s career – from his earliest paintings of the 1950s to the last ones created in the 21st century. In the spring of 2025, the exhibition curator, Dr. art. Elita Ansone, had the opportunity to select paintings for the exhibition at the Latvian National Museum of Art directly from the artist’s studio in San Francisco. The resulting selection reveals the evolution of Staprāns’ distinctive painterly language over the course of seven decades,” says advance publicity material.

At the end of the Second World War, Raimonds Staprāns fled to Germany with his family at the age of eighteen. In 1947, the family emigrated to the United States, settling in Salem, Oregon. He studied painting and drama at the University of Washington in Seattle, and completed his Master of Fine Arts at the University of California, Berkeley in 1954. San Francisco later became his home, where Staprāns established himself as a painter with a figurative but minimalist style and a marvellous talent as a colourist. He also wrote Latvian-language plays, many with a historical setting.

Staprāns last exhibited at the LNMM back in 2006, and his reputation has continued to rise in the intervening years.

As recently reported by LSM, Staprāns sadly died earlier this year. He will also be the subject of an upcoming documentary The Red Barn by acclaimed director Pēteris Krilovs, scheduled for release in October.

Full details of the exhibition here.

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